


For a Good Time Call...

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Aromantic Tony Stark, Artist Steve Rogers, Basically, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Love at First Sight, M/M, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Platonic Romance, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Tags May Change, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tropes, if that makes sense, not realistic, queer platonic relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 20:08:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 98,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6165163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony has always wanted to try calling a number on the inside of a bathroom stall, just to see what happened. So when he sees ‘for a good time call...’ followed by a number while taking a shit he figures why the hell not? It wasn’t like he was known for being the most… rational person on the planet. </p><p>“Hello?” the voice on the other end says. Tony stares at it for a second in shock, “hello?” the person asks again.</p><p>“Uh, not gunna lie, I wasn’t expecting to get this far,” Tony says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This sort of... popped into my head and yeah, it seemed good, I guess we'll see. Anyways I've always wanted to write the AU where someone calls the number on the side of a bathroom stall so here we are, fulfilling our dreams.

Tony has always wanted to try calling a number on the inside of a bathroom stall, just to see what happened. So when he sees ‘for a good time call…’ followed by a number while taking a shit he figures why the hell not? It wasn’t like he was known for being the most… _rational_ person on the planet. Rhodey told him that he probably had a whole host of mental health issues and yeah, he agreed, but he wasn’t going to go to some shrink who was bound to ask stupid questions about his childhood. He had daddy issues, he already knew that, he didn’t need some jackass to confirm that.

In all fairness he _does_ consider not calling some random number on the side of a stall in the middle of a college. He was supposed to like, guest lecture or something on his article about the applications of artificial intelligence, but he had fulfilled his duties to the university so. He figured he’d get a little entertainment out of his visit because why not. The last thing he expects when he dials the number is for the person to pick up, not one _actually_ stuck people’s numbers on bathroom stalls and no one _actually_ called them.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end says. Tony stares at it for a second in shock, “hello?” the person asks again.

“Uh, not gunna lie, I wasn’t expecting to get this far,” Tony says.

“What?” the person asks, sounding understandably confused.

“I found your number on the side of a bathroom stall in NYU and thought ‘hey, I should totally call that number’ because I have impulse control issues,” he says, figuring honestly couldn’t hurt. It wasn’t like anything was going to come of this random and strange encounter.

“I’m going to kick Clint’s ass,” the person on the other end says, “then I’m going to stick his number on every stall I can manage to get into. So, impulse control issues huh? Guess there are worse things you could have done, like write your friends’ fucking number on a bathroom stall.”

He didn’t expect a conversation to come out of this but yeah, okay, sounded good to him. “I’m going to guess that you’re a student because no one else would consider having a conversation with someone who called them from a bathroom stall. Got something due soon?” he asks.

The person on the other end of the call laughs, “good guess, and yeah, I’ve got a history paper on the importance of American propaganda in World War Two due in three days and I haven’t even started it. Should have taken Peter’s coding class, they got a guest lecture from Tony Stark today and according to a friend of mine he was an absolute delight. I have my doubts but I mean I got that from Peter, he’d probably get along just fine with Stark so. Also I’m Steve, by the way,” he says and Tony snorts because _yes_ , an opportunity to find out about himself under the guise that he was not him. That never happened and he was absolutely capitalizing on it.

“Ew. American propaganda, sounds like a great time,” he says sarcastically, “and I think Tony Stark is an actual ray of sunshine, and your Peter friend sounds like fun,” he says, neglecting his name as he walked through the hall towards the nearest coffee place that wasn’t a Starbucks.

“Oh yeah, watching boring assed propaganda videos is _fun_ ,” Steve says, “sometimes something funny happens though so I mean it isn’t all shitty. And Tony Stark is so not a ray of sunshine, though I imagine he’d think so, he’s got a sliver spoon shoved so far up his ass he grew a god complex,” he says. Tony bites his lip to keep from laughing because this was perhaps the best decision he had ever made _ever_.

“Sure, the guy’s rich and maybe a little arrogant but he’s not _all_ bad,” he says, curious to see where this was going. He liked this guy already, rarely did he ever meet someone who didn’t think the sun shone out his ass and when he did usually they wanted him dead. He walks into the coffee shop he was looking for and ignores the stares he gets. He was used to that by now.

“A _little_ arrogant? Oh man, have you never seen an interview with him? Total asshat. Not to mention the guy is a corporate fucknugget who probably runs like a million sweatshops. Not desirable,” Steve says and Tony wrinkles his nose. He didn’t run _sweatshops_! He actually did a lot of regulating to make sure everyone got fair wages. Granted the people working in other countries weren’t making what they would in America for the same work, which still made it blatantly exploitative, but that existed within the country too. He felt less shitty about that, but at least people weren’t paid pennies for difficult work.

“Do your research, no sweatshops to be found, but I’ll give you arrogant. But he does get results, can’t really call it arrogance when he actually does what he says he does,” he points out.

Steve swears on the other end, “oh my god it’s like we summoned him by talking about him or something, like speak of the devil and he shall appear or some shit,” he says and Tony laughs because he just got compared to the _devil_. Well, from where he was standing the devil had a little flair, he had flair, why not be the devil? Sounded like fun. “He’s hot, I’ll give him that. Like _way_ hotter in person though, damn, I’d tap that,” he says and Tony laughs again.

He couldn’t wait to tell Rhodey about this, or better yet, Pepper. They would both scold him for calling a random number on the side of a bathroom stall but ultimately that was just like him so they’d let it go and ask how the hell his conversation with a college student that likened him to Satan went. Surprisingly well, actually. He looks around subtly, something Rhodey taught him, and spies a blonde on the phone in the corner of the coffee shop subtly skulking at him from behind a half wall and some plants. At least this guy had the good sense to not outright stare like everyone else, including the barista, was. Steve swears again, “oh my god he just looked at me shit. Wait, I’m behind some plants, he was probably just looking in my direction thank god. He probably wouldn’t notice me anyways so uh, that’s a relief,” Steve says.

Tony had no clue what this guy was talking about because from what he could see the guy was _hot_ , a little on the skinny side maybe, but Tony liked the sharp angles of his face. And the determination he saw there, he was always fond of someone who had a bit of spunk. Usually people were just happy to say whatever they thought he wanted to hear or agree with everything he said. Like that scene in Hamlet where Polonius follows Hamlet around agreeing to everything he was saying, even when the opinions ran contrary to each other. It was boring and he appreciated anyone who didn’t do that. he gives his order and Steve scoffs at him, “oh my god, did you just order three sugars in our tea? You’re going to hell for that,” he says in a judge-y tone.

He was surprised Steve hadn’t figured it out yet but then why would he guess he was talking to Tony Stark even when the clues were super obvious. He _was_ a celebrity after all, what were the chances? “Lucky me,” Tony says, “I’m an atheist so I guess I won’t be going anywhere for my tea choices,” he says, gathering his cup with a wink at the barista, who almost faints, and he heads over to Steve. That better be the right guy or he was about to either look really dumb or get two random conversations with two random strangers in one day.

“Uh huh. Fine, you’ve escaped judgement from a higher power for now. Okay that’s weird, Stark is headed this way and he’s looking right at me- oh god you’re him aren’t you?” he says, looking mildly horrified.

“Speak of the devil,” Tony says, dropping into the seat opposite of Steve grinning.

Steve, to his credit, only drops his phone in shock, staring open-mouthed for about six seconds total before he stops short circuiting and gets his shit together. “I still think you’re an arrogant prick with a silver spoon shoved so far up your ass you grew a god complex. I stand by that,” he says, looking determined.

“Great, it’s what I like about you. Got anything else you’d like to get off your chest?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

Steve looks thrown for a loop but he recovers quickly, “you’re an ignorant rich asshole who has _way_ too much money for no goddamn reason, you’re misogynist, and if you vote Republican I will literally rip your fucking dick off because there is _no_ reason you can’t pay taxes on literal billions of dollars that’s fucking stupid. And your hotness makes up for none of that, I’d still blow you if I got the chance though, I’d sell out, who the fuck wouldn’t?” he says.

Yeah, he liked this guy, a _lot_ , even if he got stamped with the damn misogynist label _again_ without anyone knowing the whole story. He’d actually take the time to explain it to this guy though, because he actually sort of cared what he thought for some reason. Pep always did tell him he got attached too quickly but the guy just called him out to his face without blinking, that took guts. “I’ll accept my fate as an arrogant jackass with a complex, I am _not_ a misogynist, and I don’t vote. Also I think asexuals might uh, opt out of the blowjob thing, or you know, anyone who isn’t into that,” he points out.

“Actually all ace friends would totally sell out and I have really high proportion of ace friends. Like weirdly high proportion, like most of them. They’re cool though, except Clint but that is unrelated to the ace thing. Anyways the fact that you don’t vote is almost worse than you being a misogynist, don’t try and wiggle out of that label asshole, literally everyone knows how you treat women, Pepper Potts is too good for you,” he says and on that they agree.

“I’m flattered your ace friends would sell out, really, that’s sweet of them. Also duh, I am definitely that hot. You might be right about Pepper being too good for me but I’m not a misogynist, thank you very much,” he says, somewhat offended at the accusation.

“Uh huh, I’m sure you have a perfectly reasonable explanation for all those flippant ‘sure don’ts’ when people ask if you remember them,” Steve says, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

“Well that’s what they agreed to, I have better things to do than remember the names of people I had one night stands with, which they know because they literally sign a contract telling them that I want nothing to do with them after sex. It’s not very sexy but it’s necessary being a really wealthy guy who is most certainly the downfall of this planet, and I do the same with guys, they don’t get special treatment but oh wait, news doesn’t show you that, do they? They didn’t really like when I didn’t play the ‘no homo’ gay panic game with them because that’s no fun, so they made me a misogynistic ass. Well, a misogynist, I am actually an ass,” he says and Steve glares out the window, “what?”

Steve crosses his arms grumpily, “that’s a perfectly reasonable and logical explanation and I remember that gay panic thing. You pretty much laughed in that one reporter’s face and said you were pansexual but you were also like… really drunk so I figured that was fake, but to be fair that’s how it was played off so. I will _consider_ that you might not be an obnoxious misogynistic ass,” he says.

“Ahh I’ve convinced one out of millions, I’ve made progress today. I don’t actually give a shit what people think of me, I’ve been there done that and it didn’t end well so what about you? What depraved corner of the world do you come from if you’re willing to have a conversation with a guy that got your number from a bathroom stall, hmm?” he asks, genuinely interested for once. Usually he didn’t care because people were boring and predictable and they always ended up expecting something from him, even if it was just recognition. Even if he did remember the person who yelled ‘remember me?’ at him he never admitted it. They signed a contract that prohibited them from saying anything about sleeping with them and that was their way of trying to wiggle around the contract to get _him_ to say something about sleeping with them. Fuck that, they knew what they were getting into and he wasn’t going to give them their five minutes of fame because they couldn’t just fucking leave it.

“You don’t recognize the Brooklyn accent?” Steve asks, eyebrow going up.

“Doesn’t mean shit, you will not _believe_ some of the shit people have done to get close to me, or some of the fucking weird fan mail I’ve gotten. Some dude sent me his hair once,” he says, frowning. It was a peculiar experience and it had been rather fun to chase a screaming Rhodey around with a long braid of hair. Rhodey had ended up fighting back and stealing the braid, managing to turn the thing into a whip before Pepper happened upon them and told them to drop the hair, what the hell? The things that poor woman has seen, she needed a raise.

“Well Mr. Stark, consider yourself lucky because you are not worth the time and effort it would take to lie to you, no offense, I just have better things to do with my efforts,” Steve says, “I’m actually from Brooklyn.”

He grins, “good, because I don’t much care for lies. Brooklyn, hmm, what made you choose history to study, or is that just an elective?” he asks.

Steve looks surprised, “I’d’ve thought a guy like you wouldn’t handle that well, being told you weren’t worth my efforts. I figured you’d take offense, claim you were something special or something,” Steve says, “and I’m doing a Masters in U.S history. Boring stuff,” he says.

“I’m going to be honest here, I couldn’t be happier that you don’t give a shit about me, makes you easier to predict. Whatever it is you want out of this conversation, if anything, you’ll get it and you’ll go. Its people who think I’m a god that are the unpredictable ones so no, I wouldn’t react badly to someone I can be fairly certain won’t stalk me for the next decade. Which has happened. And you don’t find history boring, you’ve already outright stated you don’t waste time on things you have no interest in so what drew you to the subject?” he asks. Steve seems to thaw a bit after that and the two end up having a surprisingly lengthy conversation about an array of topics. Steve, Tony discovers, is very much into social justice and would be best described as a socialist while Tony avoided politics with a ten foot pole because he spent too much time up to his eyeballs in it. According to Steve his political apathy was terrible and needed to be rectified immediately but when Steve talked about politics it wasn’t boring.

Sure, he could have done without a thirty minute lecture about why church and state should be separated but he liked Steve’s passion. He clearly cared about the subjects he talked about and he could appreciate that, even if he didn’t generally take an interest himself. Rhodey would like Steve, he thinks, and Pepper. Both of them could appreciate the passion and the lack of bigotry.

*

He had no fucking clue how this happened. One second he had been procrastinating on writing a paper on propaganda and World War Two and the next he was in bed with Tony Stark of all people with no real knowledge of how it happened. Okay, so he wasn’t totally ignorant, he knew perfectly well how this happened but come on, who the hell answered the phone to a random number and then ended up on a pseudo-date and then ended up sleeping with them? No one to his knowledge, that series of events was so bizarre the only place they would actually happen was some stupid ass rom-com or maybe a badly written fanfiction or something. But here he was, in real life, staring at the ceiling with Tony Stark curled into the sheets next to him trying to figure out what he was supposed to do next.

Probably call Bucky, he decides, because his friend will undoubtedly be worried about him considering he hadn’t gone home last night. Or maybe Nat, who would probably want all the details he wasn’t going to give her considering the celebrity status of the person he slept with. _God_ how did this stuff always seem to happen to him? Not that he was complaining this time in particular, Tony Stark was surprisingly good company and ten out of ten, he would recommend sleeping with. He hadn’t really expected the guy to be all that great, he didn’t need to be but wow, was he wrong. Tony had predicted his feelings too and pointed out that he was well known for his perfectionism and ability to excel at just about anything, and sex wasn’t an exception. That was fair, Steve supposed, and after a night of surprises he should have seen that coming.

He carefully ties to extract himself from the bed but apparently Tony was a light sleeper because he wakes up right away, “where’re you going?” he mumbles, rubbing his eyes. He looked almost like a sleepy child, or a tired cat trying to wake up.

“Home, probably,” he says, unsure what he was supposed to say here. He wasn’t a moron, he wasn’t expecting anything out of this and he did technically have that paper to do, he really should go.

“Mmm, home later, stay now,” Tony says, gently pulling him back to the warmth. He goes willingly because he was still kind of tired and this bed was probably the most glorious thing he had ever had the good fortune of sleeping in so he was getting his fill.

When he wakes up next it’s to Tony not-so-quietly shuffling things around, “could you not?” he mumbles, throwing the nearest thing to his hand at Tony. His boxers. Great, that would happen to him.

Tony snickers, “it’s noon, you’ve met your college student quota, up you get. Want breakfast?” Tony asks, shoving a piece of paper in his face. A Nondisclosure Agreement.

“Very sexy,” he says, taking the paper and skimming it. Tony had already outlined what would be in it anyways so he knew what to expect, “pen?” he asks and Tony throws one at him. He calls him an asshole and signs the paper sloppily, handing it and the pen back to Tony.

He takes the paper and pen back, “you staying for breakfast or not?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Sure, why not,” he says, “I really do want to avoid the hell out of that paper.” He had all the research done, and the notes, it was just writing it all out that was the problem and he was feeling super lazy today. Worst come to worst he could write it fast and suffer with a lesser grade. His profs liked his anyways; they would probably give him a good grade regardless of the shoddy work. And he _had_ made a lot of progress on his thesis so he figured he deserved breakfast with the rich guy.

“Great, I already ordered you food,” he says and he rolls his eyes, of course Tony would be a presumptuous ass and assume he’d stick around. “Steve, I’ve never met a college student who turned down free food, I knew you were going to stick around,” he says. So what if that was totally sound logic, he could still feel slighted. At least until Tony kissed him and then he lost thought altogether.

“Rich people food is the best,” Steve decides, managing to somehow shove a considerable amount of eggs in his mouth. Tony laughs at his efforts, the corners of his eyes crinkling a bit and that meant it was genuine. He hadn’t expected Tony to be so easy to read being in business and all that but his body language had been surprisingly easy to pick up on.

“Its eggs, I can’t see them being that different,” Tony says.

“You’ve never eaten poor people food,” Steve says, “because these are the best eggs I have ever eaten. _Seriously_ ,” he says in an urgent tone. He needed to figure out how, exactly, these eggs were made so he could replicate them forever. Peter would shit. _Bucky_ would shit.

“Okay…” Tony says, frowning, “I mean they’re eggs but hey, if you’re enthused,” he says, shaking his head. Hell yeah he was enthused, he had no idea he needed breakfast that good until he ate it, sadly though he’d probably never be getting breakfast that good again but hey, he’ll take what he can get. “So what are you planning to do with your day?” Tony asks after a few minutes.

“Probably nothing if I’m being honest with myself, or that paper I have due that I really should get started on, but probably nothing,” he says.

“Great,” Tony says, “wanna go to Malibu?”

*

Peter was practically on his ass the second he got in the door, which he should have expected, but he was caught up in being asked to go to _Malibu_ by _Tony Stark_. He had been hesitant at first, he didn’t really want to come off as some freeloading asshole or something, but Tony had told him not to worry about it and he figured fuck it. There was probably no better way to distract himself from his responsibilities than blowing them off to go hang out with a guy that might be just a bit too old for him in a mansion in _Malibu_.

He steps through the door and gets a StarkPad all but shoved up his nose by Peter with a picture of him and Tony on the screen. He was waving his arms around animatedly while Tony leaned forward on the table, listening intently. Wow, he hadn’t thought Tony was paying that much attention but the grainy picture told him otherwise, even with the low quality he could tell Tony was fully engrossed in whatever he was saying. “Tell. Me. Everything,” Peter demands.

“Classified,” he chirps and Gamora snickers from the living room.

“Told ya he’d have to sign an NDA, Quill, you wouldn’t look so disappointed if you had’ve just listened,” she points out. They bicker back and forth and Steve ignores them in favor of packing quickly, Tony was still outside, and he was sure there was a reason for his presence in Malibu so he’d hate to keep him. Also, car sex.

“ _Steve_ ,” a familiar voice says and he looks up to find Bucky standing in his doorway shirtless with his left arm dangling from his right. Sometimes Bucky carrying around his prosthetic still freaked him out when he was tired and he forgot Bucky lost his arm in that car accident a few years ago because people shouldn’t be calmly _carrying severed limbs around_ but then he’d remember. “Where the hell have you been?” he asks, looking worried.

“Fucking Tony Stark!” Peter yells from the living room, sounding jealous. Steve snorts, yeah; Peter had a weird crush on Tony that he liked to regularly ‘no homo’ even though it was a very, very gay crush.

“Be jealous!” he yells back.

“Fuck you!” Peter yells back to him and Bucky frowns.

“I thought you hated him? something about being a piece of shit capitalist fucknut ruining everyone’s lives? Ringing a bell?” he asks, understandably confused.

“He’s actually only half as horrible as I thought, and at the risk of saying too much he is _great-_ ”

“Steve I don’t want to know, where are you going?” he asks, wandering in to hover over Steve like he always did when he got weirdly protective.

“Malibu. Seriously though, worth selling out, ten out of ten-”

“Yeah, yeah, shut it Rogers. Don’t you think this is a little… irresponsible?” he asks, hovering a little closer.

“Bucky, I’m not a child, I know what I’m doing. I’ve got a good feeling okay, just let me see where, exactly, this goes. Or doesn’t go,” he throws in when Bucky looks skeptical. He wasn’t sure why he had a feeling that this was… anything really, but there was just something drawing about Tony and he wanted more of it. He’d be perfectly content to walk away but Tony seemed to be enjoying himself too so why not?

He tosses a few medications he’d probably need in and debates for a second before throwing some art supplies into his bag too. Bucky looks jittery but he knows better than to tell Steve not to do something, the last time that happened Steve ate ten jalapeño peppers back-to-back, cried his eyes out, and drank a crazy amount of milk to try and quell the burning in his throat. “Just… be careful. And text me frequently, and send Nat pictures of the flowers, you know she likes flowers, and make sure you text frequently, and take your meds, even if you don’t think you’ll need them, and don’t forget to-”

“Barnes,” Natasha interrupts, “the poor bastard gets it. Make sure that you know where he is at every second of every day and throw in a couple flowers for me. Oh, and remain overmedicated,” she says, hands on her hips. Bucky looks properly shamed and he slinks out of the room with no less than three reminders to text, and one half completed threat on Tony’s life that Natasha cuts off. Apparently she already did that and Steve picks up his pace because Natasha was fucking _scary_. Once you got to know her she was a lovable teddy but until then she’d cut a bitch and he didn’t want Tony to be that bitch.

“Thanks for all the over-protectiveness that wasn’t needed kay, bye!” he yells, all but running to the door before taking a breath and calmly exiting the shabby house he shared with like six other people and the rent was _still_ too much. They did do group cuddles in the winter when the furnace broke and they were all fucking frozen though and that was nice.

Tony raises an eyebrow when he gets close enough to see, “I see you have your very own redheaded pitbull. I am genuinely terrified and to put that in perspective people try to kill me at least twice a month and that doesn’t bother me. Your redhead though, terrifying,” he says.

“I am so sorry, Natasha’s a little… intense,” he says, wincing.

“You’re telling me, I was so scared I forgot I was supposed to make sure Tony didn’t die. That redhead needs like… a terrorist interrogation job because they’d all confess the second she walked into the room,” the guy that drove Tony around says and what was his name? Some emotion… _Happy_ , right.

“Rhodey would have kicked your ass if she had actually hurt me,” Tony says, snickering.

“You’re a braver man than I,” Steve says, “I saw her take down a guy four times her size with a paperclip and I decided she is not someone I want to fuck with,” he says.

“I don’t scare easy, and she laid out some pretty easy conditions to follow. Ready to go?” he asks, gesturing for Steve to get into the car. Steve was curious to hear what conditions Nat set out but he knew that she wasn’t going to tell him and Tony would probably keep the information to himself too. He supposed he’d find out eventually, Nat told Bucky everything and Bucky told him everything, which had stuck them in a really weird position relationship-wise but none of them cared. Quill wanted in on it. _Clint_ wanted in on it. Everyone did, actually, it was very sweet and very satisfying.

He slides into the car with his stuff, “you probably should scare easy in this case. We have compelling evidence that Nat is actually a Russian spy who has straight up killed people. Actually, we have considerably compelling evidence of her existence in the _nineteen twenties_ so we’re all half convinced that she’s fucking immortal,” he says.

Tony looks impressed, “no shit, that’s cool as fuck, I wanna know her better,” he says, giving the house a forlorn look as they drove off.

Steve shakes his head, “you might be one of the strangest people I’ve ever met, but in a good way,” he says, grinning.

“You’re easily one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met and a guy like me doesn’t meet interesting people _ever_ let alone often. I’m curious, Rogers, to see what about you surprises me next,” Tony says, tilting his head to the side like he was trying to figure him out.

“Sorry to disappoint, Stark, but the most interesting thing I’m going to be doing is writing a paper,” he says. Tony laughs and drapes his arm over Steve’s shoulders and starts doing his own work fielding phone calls that seemed to pour in non-stop.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright lovelies, here ya go. I never see any Christine Everhart in fic ever so I decided to giver her a little love here lol.

Tony was well aware that he was probably way too impulsive on the best of days, which was why he was leery now but he was like eighty percent sure he was in love. Which, first off no one falls in love in less than two days that’s fucking insane, and two, he probably should be concerned about his own well-being. But Steve was different, he could feel it, he could _see_ it.

Most people were impressed with the mansion and Steve wasn’t an exception really, but it didn’t seem to alter his behavior any and that was a first. He didn’t get that star-stunned look, or the ‘I could scam this guy for everything he’s worth’ look, or any other look other than looking vaguely impressed with Tony’s living accommodations. He seemed more interested in his paper than the waterfall that was in his house and that was impressive.

He might have considered that he was only seeing what he wanted to, that was possible and it’s happened before, but he was more aware of himself now. Steve was genuinely more interested in writing his paper than he was in Tony’s money and that was either a fluke of student stress or he had found the holy fucking grail of nice guys. Either way he was content to see where this went, if anywhere, because he was already attached to Steve’s bright personality and enthusiasm for equality, even if he did have a tendency to lecture. He found the quality endearing and the fact that he found being _lectured_ endearing spoke volumes in itself. People telling him what to do irritated the hell out of him a good one hundred percent of the time but there was something different about the way Steve went about it though he didn’t know what.

Rhodey was going to think he was nuts or something and in his defense he’d be right, there was literally no reason he should be emotionally attached to some college student he met two days ago. And given the sketchy circumstances of their meeting, well. But there was something that drew him in and he figured there was no harm in trying to figure it out, he hoped at least.

*

His paper was far easier than he had expected and it hadn’t taken long to get most of it done. Procrastination was the enemy, he swore, but he sets the laptop aside and sends Bucky a text reminding him that Steve was, in fact, still alive. Sometimes his anxiety got bad and for some reason it always seemed to fixate on Steve. He used to wonder how Natasha never seemed to get jealous but then he’d remember that Bucky was crazy clingy when anxious and Natasha liked her space, so it was probably a relief that he didn’t focus on her. It wasn’t like the anxiety wasn’t totally unwarranted; he had a lot of health issues and often times he’d go from perfectly fine to almost dead in a matter of hours.

Tony hadn’t minded that he had set up camp on the couch with his research and had gone off to do whatever it was genius billionaires did with their time. Bucky text frequently, and so did Peter because he wanted every boring detail of his current vacation with Tony. So far nothing eventful had happened outside of Tony arguing with someone on the phone about sexuality, he insisted that being attracted to only one gender without ever being attracted to some other gender ever in a lifetime was fake. Steve agreed to agree but hey, what did he know? Whoever was on the phone lost the argument if Tony’s loud boasting was to be trusted, though he was a bit of an arrogant ass so maybe not.

Sometime after he had sat down and spread out Tony appears looking pinched, “sorry about ditching you all day, some asshole took a shit in Europe- it doesn’t really matter it’s been dealt with. What have you been up to?” he asks, gingerly sitting on the couch, avoiding crushing Steve’s research. That was appreciated, he had a system that he would prefer Tony didn’t sit on.

“My stupid essay, it’s mostly done so at least there’s that. The day of quite was actually pretty beneficial so there’s no need to feel bad,” he says, “and besides, you’re a busy guy. It’d be pretty ridiculous if I assumed you were going to drop everything for me,” he points out.

Tony snorts, “you’re one of the first, most people assume that I’ll ignore everything in favor of them,” he says.

“You’re a CEO, that makes no sense,” Steve says, gathering his research so Tony had more room to spread out on his own furniture. He was also done for the day, if he had to read one more god damn article about World War Two propaganda he was going to throw himself off the cliff and enjoy the beautiful view on the way down.

“Doesn’t stop people much,” Tony says, “and don’t forget inventor, I’d count myself as that before a CEO, Pep does most of the paperwork,” he says.

“Pepper needs a raise,” he says and Tony laughs, agreeing that she needed a raise but because of all the other stuff she put up with, not necessarily the paperwork.

“Would you like me to bump her pay?” … _something_ asks from the speaker system and Steve jumps, sending his papers flying everywhere.

He resents Tony for laughing at his plight, he almost had a heart attack and he had heart problems and high blood pressure, that was a legit worry. “JARVIS, have you not said anything to him all day?” he asks and right. JARVIS. The AI Tony built that supposedly changed everything, Peter had gone on and on about it when they had first met back in their undergrad degree.

“I haven’t felt the need, sir, and he looked engrossed in his work,” the AI replies. It was weird how… _human_ the AI seemed, how natural the responses were. Maybe Peter was right to be so obsessed with it.

“Well thanks JARVIS, because I got to see that spectacular jump. You okay?” Tony asks, still laughing at him.

“No, I almost died! Give a guy a warning next time,” he says, hand pressed to his heart. At least Bucky wasn’t around to hover for the next two hours, worried that he’d actually have a heart attack. He wouldn’t, he had just been frightened, but that wouldn’t stop Bucky from plastering himself to Steve’s side.

“I don’t think I have a sufficient way to warn a person for JARVIS. Like ‘hey, don’t mind the disembodied voice that sometimes talks’. Something tells me that wouldn’t cut it,” Tony says and fair enough, he made a point.

“Alright, so you make a point, but still. Voices coming from the walls is a terrifying experience, does JARVIS talk like… often?” he asks, curious as to how the AI factored into Tony’s life. He seemed perfectly at ease with the tech, talking to it like it was human but for all he knew that wasn’t normal.

“Considerably often, yes,” the AI responds for Tony.

“God that’s creepy,” Steve says, eyeing the ceiling and walls for speakers but not finding any.

“The speakers are meant to be invisible to the human eye,” the AI supplies for him and Steve flattens himself to the back of the couch.

“This is some futuristic sci-fi shit where I die in my sleep and robots take over, isn’t it?” he asks to no one in particular.

“I’ve been on the internet, Mr. Rogers, I assure you I am under the impression that humanity is not a species worth ruling. The kitten pictures are adorable, though,” the AI says and that was probably one of the most frightening things Steve had ever heard.

“One, how does it know who I am? Two, it has _emotions_?” he asks, “I could have went my whole life without knowing about this.”

“Relax, Steve, facial recognition is part of the security measures I have employed here, and everywhere else I frequent. And technically no, JARVIS does not have emotions, but he does know how to read emotional responses from humans and his assessment of kittens comes from my cooing over them. Technically anyone who doesn’t like cats are an anomaly to JARVIS, like Rhodey, and rightfully so. Cats are amazing,” he says. Steve snorts, of course Tony was a cat person, it was all too fitting.

“I still think your AI is creepy, even if it is also crazy impressive and inexplicably gendered,” he says.

“I’m named after a man named ‘Jarvis’,” the AI supplies, “I assume my gender comes from that. Otherwise I’m afraid I’m lost.”

“I’m having a conversation with a computer,” Steve says, “every event in my life has lead up to this moment and I am talking to a hunk of microchips,” he says, rubbing his face.

“Factually that is incorrect and I am offended at your lack of knowledge,” Tony says, “and JARVIS is better described as a complex code that functions similarly to the hunam brain inasmuch as the ability to create multiple response paths to one basic problem. He just uses technology to communicate, he's not actually a computer. Get your shit together.” Tony actually does sound slightly offended but this was his expertise, something Steve had base knowledge in if that much.

“Great, so I’m having a conversation with something that’s almost intangible. That’s far less frightening,” he says sarcastically. “I think I may have underestimated your abilities in the tech building department because your JARVIS makes _jokes_ , pretty good ones. That is insane,” he says.

“Ha, so you’ve finally done something everyone else does. People like to assume either I’ve overestimated my abilities or other people have. But no, I am genuinely extremely impressive,” Tony says, grinning.

“Very modest, sir,” the AI says. Steve wonders if there was some sort of… filter that made JARVIS’ voice speak in different inflections because there was no need for some lines of code to be able to produce a dry tone. Steve also got the impression that this was a running joke too, and he couldn’t decide whether or not he should be disturbed or impressed.

“I’m going to accept that I am way out of my depth of understanding here and go out on a limb and trust that your AI isn’t going to kill me in my sleep. If it does, I blame you,” he tells Tony. He picks himself up off the couch to pick up his papers and reorganize them.

*

The next day was considerably more interesting if for no other reason than the phone call he wakes up to from Peter. “Congratulations, you’ve been robbed for the third time this month!” he yells into the phone.

Steve groans, “what went this time?” he mumbles into his pillow, unwilling to wake up all the way for something that was pretty routine.

“Thankfully nothing all that important, some pots and pans, your glasses, Clint’s bird food, Gamora’s makeup, like four of my socks. I don’t even know why they went for the socks, they were so nasty they could stand up on their own but like… maybe their friends didn’t believe them when they mentioned the socks so they took the socks with them? Either way, less laundry,” he says.

“Why did you even call if only bird food and socks went missing?” he mumbles, annoyed that his sleep had been interrupted for _this_.

“Dude, someone stole my dirty socks, that’s eventful,” Peter says and he probably did think that was an event too. He made a mental note to kick Quill’s ass for this when he got home, he had better things to do with his time that agonize over some missing socks that Peter had stood on end.

“Did anything _real_ go missing?” he mumbles. His glasses, maybe, but they weren’t the ones he used because those were with him currently so they didn’t matter so much.

“Nah,” Peter says and yeah, Steve was so going to kick his ass for this phone call.

“I hate you,” he mumbles and hangs up the phone, tossing his phone into the sheets of Tony’s frankly far-too-large bed. He wasn’t going to lie though; if he could afford it and had the space for it he’d have a giant bed too. He’d even take the silky red sheets that were far too over the top for his usual tastes. They were soft as hell though and when he woke up his hair wasn’t static-y and that was a blessing because he usually looked like a tiny dandelion when he woke up. That was not the aesthetic he was going for.

“What was that,” Tony mumbles, stretching out and no, he was awake and Steve was not ready to face the cruel, cruel world. He had learned Tony was a crazy light sleeper, which floored him because who could sleep badly in a bed that you sunk into? His own bed was so uncomfortable that he usually slept terribly in it, waking every few hours, but Tony’s bed was like a welcoming blanket and he would be sad to see it go.

“Mmm, nothing, just got robbed again, nothing big,” he mumbles.

“ _What_?” Tony asks and the tone that he uses wakes Steve up a little because it sounded urgent, worried.

“Relax; it’s pretty normal for us. Gamora’s makeup went missing though; she’s probably pretty pissed about that. She searched forever to find a foundation dark enough to match her skin tone,” he says, slightly more awake. Makeup was a sore subject for Gamora though her rants never failed to be hilarious. Once she went on a long rant of all the shades of ‘toasted mayo’ but nothing for her own darker skin shade.

“This is _normal_ for you?” Tony asks, sounding horrified.

“Yeah, I live in a shitty section of New York. The good news is that we have nothing worth stealing outside of my laptop, Bucky’s left arm, a StarkPad, and Clint’s hearing aids. But I mean who’s going to steal a guy’s left arm? That’s pretty shitty, and no one is brave enough to enter Clint’s room, including Clint so anything that’s in there is out,” he says. They had taken to hiding all electronics in Clint’s room because of that. Unfortunately they lost a T.V in there some two years ago and cleaning the space hadn’t recovered it.

He resigns himself to waking up because Tony didn’t look ready to drop the subject any time soon. “Why don’t you just move?” he asks and Steve laughs.

“Oh yeah, that’s totally a viable solution,” he says sarcastically, “I’d have to find a place that isn’t in a crappy section of town that’s affordable, somehow get first and last together, somehow cover moving costs, and completely screw my friends over in the process because we all share rent on the place we have now. Based on the first requirement it’s already impossible, so ‘just move’ isn’t as easy as you might think,” he says. Not that Tony would know, he could buy the entire continent and probably still have money left.

Tony frowns, like that information was hard to compute or something, which Steve supposes it must be for someone who can do whatever he wants with no financial consequences. “Are college students really that broke? I mean people make jokes about it but like… seriously?” Tony asks, trying to work that out. What Steve wouldn’t give to watch the mental backflips Tony must be making to try and work that out.

“Yes, I am very poor. I got paid yesterday, which means I technically have some money but like I had two dollars in my account before that and I was excited because that’s more than I’ve had in my account for months. I got coffee, it was glorious,” he says because it was. It was pretty sad, he thought, that buying coffee had become a liberating experience but it was and he wasn’t going to turn down joy over the little things. Hell, there was a point in his undergrad where he had been happy to afford toilet paper instead of befriending people just to steal theirs. Clint was the god damn master at that and of all the odd things to happen he had ended up in a relationship with Phil, who was not happy to find Clint stealing his TP. That was around the time they all managed to find jobs though so Phil got his toilet paper to himself again.

“Do you like, want some mone-”

“ _No_ , Tony I don’t want your damn money. That was to put things in perspective for you, not to get money out of you, ew,” he says, somewhat offended at the suggestion.

“No need to be so… offended,” Tony says, clearly confused by the reaction.

“I’m just saying, I don’t want or need your money. Well, maybe need, but no, I already feel like a freeloading asshole there is no need to add to that. And I don’t want you to feel like I’m using you for your money, which I am not,” he says, just to clarify.

“Trust me Steve; I’d know if you had an interest in my money, I already know you don’t. I was just trying to be nice,” he says.

“Find better ways to be nice, like making coffee, or not waking me up before noon. I love you forever,” he says.

*

Tony squints at Steve’s hair, “what is the point of an undercut? It’s like… a backwards mullet, like business on the sides, party on top?” he asks, frowning at him.

“You had frosted tips in the nineties, you have had your hair-shaming card revoked, sir,” Steve says without missing a beat. He was making an attempt at finishing the citations for his paper but citations were a pain in the ass and he had no idea how missing a comma in a citation that clearly stated that idea was not initially his somehow meant plagiarism. Academia is weird.

“They were in style then, don’t judge me,” Tony says, sticking his nose in the air.

“You looked _horrible_ , and that is saying something because you are genuinely hot, like _really_ hot. But the frosted tips looked so bad you looked like an alien, there are whole conspiracy theories that center around you being replaced by an alien for the whole decade you looked that bad,” Steve says. Tony’s whole fashion in the nineties and early two thousands was just… frightening, though the whole of fashion then was terrible. Thank god he had never had to wear some horrible space-aged looking suit that was made out of some horrible shiny material. “Besides, if your defense to the frosted tips were in style, so are undercuts so you can’t judge me based off your own logic,” he says smugly.

Tony wrinkles his nose at him because he knew he was right, “alien theories are dumb,” he mumbles because he had nothing better.

“May I weigh in?” JARVIS asks. Steve gives the ceiling a suspicious glance but refrains from insulting Tony’s astoundingly creepy and impressive AI.

“Only if you agree with me,” Steve and Tony say in sync.

“Sir, the frosted tips were not your best look,” the AI says.

“Ha,” Steve says, “JARVIS agrees with me.” If he was a little smug about that, well, he wasn’t wrong about the frosted tips so he had every right to be.

Tony looks utterly betrayed, “I gave you _life_ ,” Tony says dramatically, “and _this_ is how you repay me?”

“The internet is in agreement with Mr. Rogers, sir, the frosted tip look is not for you,” the AI says.

“Please call me Steve, I am not Mr. Rogers, that’s weird and it makes me sound like a senior citizen or the kids show guy. Not what I’m going for in life,” he says.

“I thought it looked great,” Tony sniffs and Steve was like eighty percent sure that he hadn’t seen a picture of himself with frosted tips like… _ever_.

That, he decided, needed to be rectified immediately so he searches Tony’s name and the time period he was looking for and turns his screen to face Tony. “You looked horrible, and you should feel bad,” he says.

Tony pulls the computer closer and frowns, “oh my god, what is happening here? Why do I look like a seventies porn star? You know what, you purposely clicked on- oh god that’s actually the most attractive picture of me in this mess. You tried to spare me. JARVIS, bury all evidence I ever existed in the nineties- why am I wearing a shiny purple suit? Who authorized this? Does Pepper know? Did she _let_ me do this? God I know I had a bit of a nasty coke habit in the nineties but _wow_ , I do not remember looking like a bad Dr. Who villain,” Tony says, wrinkling his nose at the images of himself.

“Told ya,” Steve sing-songs, “and undercuts are cute, I look hella adorable, thank you very much,” he says haughtily.

“Okay but you’re an exception; you don’t count,” Tony insists, “the frosted tip thing though. God, I should not be in charge of my appearance while wasted, ugh.”

“Sir, you’ve been wasted for the better part of your life,” JARVIS points out.

“I gave up the drugs, and I don’t drink often,” he says. The naturalistic conversation with the AI was both weird and fascinating at the same time, but mostly weird. It was pretty clear that Tony seemed to be friends with the AI and Steve couldn’t tell if that was healthy or not. Granted he had an emotional attachment to his favorite sweater and cried when Bucky tried to throw it out so perhaps he wasn’t the greatest judge of unhealthy attachments.

“If you insist,” the AI says and Steve snorts because JARVIS sounded sarcastic and that was amusing.

“I do insist and I am obviously right because I am the genius here so ha,” Tony says as if that meant anything at all.

*

He was like eighty percent sure he was in love, which, that was just stupid. No one fell in love in two days, that was insane, not to mention risky. But Tony was fun, and sweet, and he was a good conversationalist and he listened. There were a half a dozen other traits he enjoyed about him too but those were his top favorites, and the fact that he was so passionate about technology in a way that Steve hadn’t expected when he probably should have. He had asked what Tony was working on, an offhand comment really, but it had turned into an hour long explanation of a bunch of stuff he had zero understanding of but Tony was so enthusiastic he didn’t care.

At least until Tony seemed to realize how much he had been talking and apologized for being annoying, which was terrible because some asshole at some point had made him feel bad for being passionate about something and that just pissed him off. So he insisted that Tony wasn’t irritating him, which he wasn’t, and he asked a few questions about Tony’s latest project. The tech Tony built, Steve learned, was way cooler than what was currently commercialized. Hell, half of it was so advanced it shouldn’t exist and the rest sounded like something out of a sci-fi flick.

In all honesty he couldn’t even comprehend what Tony was talking about until he dumbed the language down, which was a shame because he would have loved to get the full picture rather than the simplified one. But engineering-fluent he was not and Tony seemed more than happy to explain things in more detail for him. Somehow this turns into a tour of his lab, including an introduction to his bots, another thing that Tony seemed to hold a strong emotional attachment to. He had to admit Dummy’s habit of following Tony around with a fire extinguisher was kind of cute, even if he was confused on how the bot could possibly be displaying what looked like concern and empathy.

Tony’s work was astounding, everything was so… _advanced_ , even the keyboard was in some other language of something. Tony informed him that he had invented a set of cues and code that he had turned into a keyboard because it was faster than a traditional English keyboard and that alone was amazing. “And this,” Tony says, tapping the keyboard in front of him, or the air, or however those hologram things worked, “is my latest project. It isn’t anywhere near complete but it’s a miniaturized version of the arc reactor in SI, but far smaller and about a thousand times more efficient. Assuming I manage to find a more suitable core this could be the next big thing in green energy,” he says.

He looks oddly nervous, like he was looking for validation in _Steve_ of all people. It was weird to think that Tony Stark could possibly be _self-conscious_ considering his general persona. “That’s…” he starts but then something catches his eye. He can see Tony wilt a little out of the corner of his eye but he ignores it in favor of asking questions, “if you have to figure out the mini arc reactor how come there’s one sitting on your desk?” he asks.

“Oh, that’s a prototype, it’s useless. It works, but it’s useless,” he says, dismissing the work immediately and that was odd.

“I remember when the original arc reactor was publicized, wasn’t it like… impossible or something? People kept saying it wasn’t going to work, and that you’d wasted a bunch of money on it but I mean clearly they were wrong. So does that make the mini like… more impossible?” he asks, not exactly having the language to say what he was thinking.

“Actually the original was possible, but expensive, and inefficient given the size and energy output ratio, people were right to say it was a useless publicity stunt. Technically the mini is flat out impossible,” Tony says.

“And your prototype, it works?” he asks.

“Yeah, but not the way it’s supposed to. The core isn’t as efficient as it should be,” he says, frowning like he was trying to figure out a problem.

“But technically it shouldn’t exist, am I understanding that right?” he asks because for all he knew he understood something wrong. It wasn’t like he was tech savvy, at least not like this.

“Technically yes, but it isn’t as good as it could be but I can’t figure out what would work as a better core…” Tony says, trailing off.

Steve stares at him, dumbfounded because the guy invented something so far ahead of its time it shouldn’t exist and he was _complaining_? “This is fucking amazing, Tony, this could change the world. That’s… that’s truly remarkable,” he says, sounding more awed than he had intended.

That wilting that Tony had done earlier seems to melt away and Tony perks up, “you think?” he asks, as if Steve’s opinion should even matter here.

“You made something that shouldn’t exist, _can’t_ exist. Yeah I think that’s amazing, Tony, anyone would,” he says. It floored Steve that Tony didn’t think that, how could he _not_?

“Obadiah didn’t seem fond of the idea,” he says and it takes Steve a moment to place the name.

“You mean your old business partner that you found out was selling weapons to terrorists and was plotting your murder? Tony, it goes without saying that that guy was a piece of shit and his opinions are worthless. Whatever qualms he had with it probably aren’t even relevant anymore because he probably told you it was impossible, which isn’t true because you made one so. You’re way smarter than him, and you decided selling weapons and profiting off war was horrible, so bonus points to you for stopping that bullshit,” he says.

Normally he wouldn’t award brownie points for no-brainers but he got the feeling he was missing a lot of the story where this Obadiah person was concerned if Tony cared about the guy’s opinion after all that had happened there. Tony looks oddly relieved by this, like he’d been waiting to hear someone say that for some time and it had finally happened. “Well, it is more efficient than the original. That one can only power SI, this could run New York state for twenty five lifetimes, even with the faulty core so I guess it’s marginally better,” he says, swiping his hand across the diagram, sending it spinning around.

Steve looks at him like he’s nuts, “this can power New York state for twenty five lifetimes?” he asks, astounded.

“Yeah, but the core burns out too quick,” Tony says.

Steve rubs his temples, “I am going to be completely honest here, I have no idea why you are so hung up on that. I mean I’m sure you’ll find a solution, but this is as close to magic as humans are ever going to get and that’s amazing, Tony. You’re _amazing_ ,” he says, awestruck with what Tony was able to _do_. No wonder the guy had grown a god complex, it wasn’t exactly unwarranted considering.

Tony blinks and turns away from the diagram, “really?” he asks, like this is the first time someone had ever said that to him. It couldn’t possibly be the first time someone had told him that but it did look like it was the first time he was prepared to believe that.

He gets the distinct feeling that Tony views his tech in a completely different way than Steve did and it leaves him feeling like he’s standing in the middle of Tony’s diary, which was oddly intimate. “Yeah, Tony, I genuinely think you’re amazing, that the stuff you can _do_ is amazing. Your lab is like I stepped two hundred years into the future, that’s astounding,” he says, genuinely meaning what he was saying. Tony beams at him and for a moment they seem to share a moment but then Tony looks away and starts explaining something new.

Yeah, he was probably in love.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some idiot reason I thought the last chapter was this one so NOW Christine Everhart gets some love lol.

Tony had things to do, which he understood, so he took the opportunity to explore a bit while he was on pseudo-vacation. He made sure to text Bucky a few times so the poor guy didn’t lose his shit and think he was dead or something. Bucky had a tendency to be a bit over the top and he would rather not get a phone call from Bucky after he somehow managed to make it to Malibu because he freaked out a little. It has happened and he didn’t much care for a repeat performance. Sometimes it annoyed him, Bucky’s over protectiveness, but he knew that Bucky didn’t mean any harm by it and he also knew that Bucky tried his best to keep his anxieties to himself. After the crash, though, his general protectiveness over Steve increased tenfold and sending a few texts to Bucky to remind him that he wasn’t dead wasn’t much of a hardship in the long run.

Surprisingly the media hadn’t run off with any stories about him and Tony despite the pictures, though Steve was certain Tony had something to do with that, so he didn’t much expect a reporter to slide into the seat across from him in the coffee shop he had gone to. She looked vaguely familiar but he couldn’t remember why until she introduced herself, “Christine Everhart,” she says, extending her hand.

“Fuck off,” he says none too kindly. She raises an eyebrow but she doesn’t look deterred, though he probably should have expected that from someone who made a living stalking people. Specifically Tony, she had a weird habit of being everywhere he was. She also wrote surprisingly nice stories about the guy considering they seemed to disagree on… everything.

“Given your reaction I’m going to assume you recognize my face, my name, or both so I’ll cut to the chase,” she says, leaning forward, “you and Tony, what is that?” she asks. He doesn’t bother answering her question and looks away; examining the street he was currently on.

“So you’re going to play this game, hmm? Well, I hope you know you aren’t the first one who’s called Tony out and ended up in his bed, wanna see the NDA I signed?” she asks. He’d snort and roll his eyes but then she’d think she got some sort of reaction out of him and that wasn’t what he was going for. It did confirm a few of his suspicions though, so at least there was that. Also she technically broke the terms of the agreement she signed so that was her stupidity. Either way he was well aware of Tony’s active sex life, he wasn’t a moron, he saw the headlines whether or not he wanted to so if she wanted a reaction she was going to have to try harder.

“Hmm. Alright then, I’ve done my research, you’re very active in social justice, very anti-capitalism. You can’t possibly be fond of Tony, his business, or really anything else about the guy. How _do_ you reconcile with yourself?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. The woman was grating, he’d admit, but she had probably perfected that a long time ago to get her job done. As for her question, well, he didn’t like that Tony was a drain on the system and no one acknowledged it because ‘hard work’ but it wasn’t as if either one of them could feasibly live outside the system, especially him. If it were possible for him to escape capitalism and live as a mountain person he would but his health issues alone made that impossible.

“Fine then, I’ll just assume you sold your cause out, we have a price Steve, I guess I met yours. See ya,” she says and he _barely_ keeps from reacting to that. He knew she was just trying to get him to rise to the bait and talk, it’d give her something to write about and he didn’t want to do that, but he did _not_ sell anything out. He keeps his mouth shut and after lingering for a few seconds in order to gather his reaction she seems to come to the conclusion she wasn’t getting one so she takes off.

*

Tony’s phone rings and he rolls his eyes when he spies the number, “Christine, long time no see. I was sort of hoping you finally died off,” he says. He actually rather enjoyed the woman, she was something of a media genius and he had use for that, but he also liked their banter so he pretended he hated her. He thought she understood because she did basically the same thing.

“You can stop pretending you hate me, Stark, because I’ve got information on your boy-toy that you’re going to want,” she says.

He sits straight up in his chair, his feet falling off the edge of his desk, “are you fucking kidding me?” he snaps. She knew better than to stick her nose in where it didn’t belong, it wasn’t like she hadn’t been smacked down by Pepper more than once, so what she thought she was doing here he had no idea.

“Oh don’t act so pissed off, Tony, I’m doing you a favor,” she says in a cheery tone.

“Like fuck you are,” he snaps, “you know better than to stick your nose where I don’t want it-”

“You hit the holy fucking grail, Stark, he didn’t react whatsoever and I tried my best. Potts reacted to my best and she’s got an iron will, I’m impressed,” she says, sounding it too.

“What do you think you’re playing at?” he asks because she had an endgame, she _always_ had an endgame and he wanted to be ahead of the curve here considering Christine had learned to _make_ the curve on any media coverage about him. Impressive, really, because she was rarely the first on the story, but she did happen to be the one who always had a new and interesting story to read. It took skill, Tony would grudgingly admit; do develop talent like Christine’s, even if he wanted to strangle her more often than not.

“The same thing I’m always playing at, Stark, the story. Give me full access and I’ll have America eating out of your hand, hell, if I play my cards right the world,” she says confidently. If it was anyone but Christine he’d laugh in their face because that wasn’t possible, but this was _Christine_ , the woman was almost as smart as him if in a different way.

“I’ll consider it, but I’d have to talk to Steve first. I’ve known the poor guy for three days; I’m not going to throw him head first into a media shitstorm that you’ll be leading. That’s cruel,” he says. Shit. _Shit_. This wasn’t supposed to happen; he had Pepper quell what would have been a media shitstorm after the first set of pictures leaked. God damnit, he was hoping for a little peace and quiet for a bit if for no other reason than not having Steve dragged through the mud every five seconds by some new and more aggressive media outlet. It wasn’t an easy thing to deal with and he didn’t figure Steve would want anything to do with that, understandably.

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me, Stark?” she snaps.

“What?” he asks, rolling his eyes.

“That’s the first thing that has got to go, you’ve been dating for months as far as everyone else knows,” she tells him.

“Excuse me?” he asks, irritated with her meddling.

“No one will believe a love story that happened in three days, Tony, that’s fucking crazy. I’ve done my research though and my _god_ the parallels between the two of you are _beautiful_. You both tragically lost your family young, you both have a tragic car crash in your past, both of you are deeply invested in the well-being of others due to your tragic pasts, and both of you have worked hard to get to where you are in life. Steve Rogers is the All American Boy who finally achieved his American Dream when he met Tony Stark. They’ll _love_ it,” she says and he can hear the words of the article she was going to write on this right now. God, Steve was going to ditch him in two seconds flat and he could hardly blame the guy. Fuck.

“Keep your enthusiasm to yourself, I’ll talk to Steve and if he has any interest in sticking around, which I doubt, I’ll let you know,” he says.

Christine laughs and he resents that, “oh honey, you might be painfully bad with people but I am not. Anyone who is _that_ into social justice remaining quiet when someone accuses them of selling out is in it for the long haul, trust me. I have no clue how you managed to achieve this in three days but it’s you, I’m hardly surprised,” she says and the line goes dead. He sighs and rubs his eyes, hoping that Steve doesn’t run off before something can even happen.

“God damnit,” he mumbles, “why do you have to get attached so fast?”

Steve comes back sometime later laughing with Happy so obviously he wasn’t mad, or at least he wasn’t willing to take it out on Happy. He could be thankful for that at least, there was more than one person in his past that had decided that Happy being the driver/ bodyguard meant they could treat him like shit and he very much did not appreciate that. Happy bids them both a goodbye and leaves, making some lame excuse about feeding his dog. Tony assumed that Happy correctly read that he had things to talk about with Steve and that required being alone. He was good with that though he had lots of practice from Pepper kicking him out of the room in the most loving manner possible.

“So um. Sorry about Christine, the reporter,” he clarifies awkwardly.

Steve raises an eyebrow, “you know about that already?” he asks.

He sighs, “Christine and I have a weird relationship, she called me when she was done with you to rub it in my face,” he says.

“Hmm. Well she’s an asshole and apparently has no idea what an NDA is,” Steve says.

“Oh come on! That was three years ago and she threw that in your face? Fuck her,” he snaps, irritated that Christine would seriously do that, and full well knowing he probably wouldn’t do anything too because he needed her. God, she was an asshole, a diabolical one, but still.

“You already did that, I believe that was the point of her mentioning the NDA,” Steve says and for a second Tony doesn’t know if Steve is making a joke or pointing out the obvious but then they both start laughing so he supposes it was a joke.

“Yeah, really regret that now, almost as much as I’m happy it happened. The woman is an absolute genius and I don’t use that word lightly,” he says.

“So?” Steve asks, seemingly waiting for him to continue.

“So… what?” he asks, hoping to head off this discussion for the next forever.

“You brought this up for a reason, Tony, what is it?” he asks, walking over and placing his hands on his hips.

He wraps his arms around Steve gratefully, “she wants full access to the story,” he says bluntly, figuring there was no reason to beat around the bush any more than he already had.

“And you’re considering this because? You must have a reason,” Steve says but at least he doesn’t look angry, or like he was about to run off.

“Because she’s genuinely good at her job and she’ll know how to spin everything just right to keep people off your back. Trust me, with the amount of terrible accusations Pepper gets on a regular basis _still_ you’re going to want that. Assuming you even want anything to do with any of this, I would completely understand if you walked away now, dating me will not be a cakewalk in any respect,” he says, throwing the option out there even if he wanted nothing to do with it. He’s always been a selfish guy; he figured maybe he should try his hand at not being selfish for once and offer Steve an out even if he didn’t want Steve to go.

Steve frowns, “Tony when I agreed to come with you to Malibu I knew full well what I was getting into, someone aside from Christine is bound to notice I was here and make the connection to the coffee shop. Whether or not I walk away now I will be dragged into the media, even if the spotlight only lasts a day or two. Walking away isn’t going to spare me and even if it was I would have walked away long before I ever decided to go anywhere with you,” he says frankly. He appreciated that blunt honesty; it was refreshing, especially because Steve was so easy to read when he genuinely believed something.

“Well, that’s a relief,” he says flippantly, resorting to pretending he didn’t care to cover the fact that he did. “So uh, it’s your life, this is par for the course for me, whether or not you want Christine digging around is your choice,” he says and Steve blinks in surprise.

“ _My_ choice?” he asks, frowning.

“Yeah,” Tony says, “like I said, this is normal for me. I don’t really care what people say about me, I’ve learned not to care, but this is a whole new thing for you. It wouldn’t make any sense for me to make a decision that will affect you far more than me,” he says. Duh.

*

He sits across from Christine and glares at her because he didn’t much care for the ignorant reporter. She doesn’t seem particularly bothered by this; actually she seemed outright pleased that Steve didn’t like her. “Well,” she says, “at least you have good sense, god knows Stark needs some,” she mumbles and starts pulling out a series of folders.

Steve snatches the first one that lands anywhere near him and gets glared at for his efforts, “you’ve essentially got permission to legally stalk me, I think I should be afforded the _privilege_ of reading whatever is in the folders,” he says with as much sarcasm and rudeness as he could jam into his tone.

“Fine,” Christine says, “you should know your own life story so it isn’t like you’ll find anything interesting. Don’t mess up my order,” she snaps, pulling a few more folders out of her bag. He skims over things while Christine organizes herself and frowns.

“What’s Bucky got to do with any of this? Before you open your mouth the answer is nothing, leave him out of this, he has anxiety issues and this wouldn’t do much to help,” he says with a protective edge to his voice.

“Good, he has mental health issues, now spending a freakish amount of time with him will seem like charity instead of an affair,” Christine says and Steve’s jaw drops.

“ _Excuse_ me?” he snaps, offended that she would suggest spending time with Bucky was an act of _charity_. How fucking offensive was that! Tony sinks a little lower in his seat like he was trying to melt into it and escape the conflict.

“Look Steve, I need to make everything between the two of you look like a fairy tale romance and your one armed friend is making things difficult when live up each other’s asses. If I make the guy sound damaged and wounded people will think you’re a humanitarian,” she says.

“That’s fucking ignorant! I don’t spend time with Bucky as some act of charity, that’s horrible and ableist!” he snaps. Tony, the poor guy, clearly did not anticipate this and kept looking back and forth between the two like he expected one or both of them to jump the table and scratch each other’s eyes out.

“Oh shut up and let me do my job. I don’t need to imply that you spend time with the guy because you feel bad for him; everyone else will assume that all by themselves. I get you’re all social justice-y but if you want this to work you might want to learn how play the system. Now _please_ tell me your anxious butt buddy has a girlfriend. People are much more accepting of heterosexual pairings and they will immediately ‘no homo’ every interaction you have like they’ve done with Tony and Rhodey,” she says.

Christine, he learns, really is a master of putting a spin on things, even if the spins were horrible and played on some pretty shitty assumptions about people, like spending time with Bucky out of charity. “So how did you two meet? I should have started with that but _someone_ got us off track with a rant about his friend,” Christine says, glaring at Steve.

“I called a random number on the side of a bathroom stall and voila,” Tony says, waving his hands around.

For a moment she doesn’t say anything, she just stares at Tony like she was waiting for the real story. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she asks, turning to Steve so see if he had something better, which he didn’t because Tony told the truth. “No, no we cannot tell people that oh my god. Come up with something better,” she says.

“We aren’t just going to lie, why would we even do that?” Steve asks, frowning.

Christine rolls her eyes, “because no one wants to hear about the three day whirlwind romance that will end in disaster on principal, and that doesn’t even include the ‘sounds like a cheap stripper’ meeting. People want to live through you, they aren’t going to relate to that, no one wants to be the cheap stripper that some billionaire bought,” she says bluntly.

“Hey, whoa, that is not what happened thank you very much,” Tony says angrily, offended at the suggestion. Good, let it be his turn to deal with whatever this was.

“Doesn’t matter, that’s what people will see, come up with something better, something beautiful. Stop staring at me Stark and get thinking, I have no need for a story that reads like something out of some gross pick up artist novel,” she says, “now back to you. Got any ideas on how to make a strongly anti-capitalist social justice warrior dating one of the richest guys in the world unironically sound like something other than a sick joke?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at Steve. Ugh, that woman was so god damn unpleasant even if she did make a point.

“Just tell people he’s like… teaching me about social issues so I can use my resources for not evil stuff or something,” Tony says, still clearly annoyed about the stripper comment.

“That makes it sound like I’m using you for your money to farther my own agendas, I sound like an asshole,” Steve says.

“Point to blondie, that’s true. You got anything better?” she asks.

“Sure. I met Tony on the way back from some protest or something and called him out, let Tony work for my love, people love an underdog story and Tony groveling at my feet sounds appealing considering he’s probably never had to grovel for anything. Makes him look good for learning he’s an asshole without sacrificing my authenticity, and that will be called into question. Plus at least one person heard me call Tony out at the coffee shop, they’ll confirm the story and boom, the whole thing gets questioned half as much,” he says.

She considers it, “so you met a year ago, it would explain all the charity work Tony’s been doing in the last year and it’ll make it feel less wooden, less like he’s trying to look good for press. Now he’s doing it because you’re teaching him about issues and he _cares_ , how sweet is that? And you being from a low socio-economic system is great, it gives the story a feel of legitimacy, and you’re ability to rise up through the social classes makes it two underdog stories in one. Tony achieved the love of his life and you now have the social platform and resources to talk about the issues you’re interested in. Plus it humanizes Tony a little, makes his status and wealth seem more… achievable,” she says, scribbling a bunch of notes on her note pad.

God, he couldn’t believe he was making up blatant lies about the origins of his and Tony’s relationship to make it seem more likeable. What the fuck? Who even did stuff like this? “You know, with all the lovely parallels in your life that just might make you two seem like star-crossed lovers, torn apart by social classes and different interests, drawn together by fate and social justice!” she says dramatically.

“What is this? The Hunger Games? I feel like Tony and I are Katniss and Peeta negotiating a love story so the Capital doesn’t kill us,” he says, rubbing his temples.

“It was an allegory for American society, so this is the Hunger Games, and I guess my role makes me Seneca Crane,” she says. Steve’s not sure if she remembers that Seneca Crane dies in the end for not playing the game well enough.

*

“If you want to walk away now, I get it,” Tony says, wincing. Christine had compared him to a stripper who had been _bought_ by Tony, that had to be a confidence blow.

Steve laughs, “baby I made up a backstory for us, we’re meant to last,” he says wistfully and they both laugh. “Is that…. normal for you though? Just making shit up to achieve a certain public image?” he asks after a moment.

He sighs, “unfortunately yeah. Almost everything that gets printed about me has some sort of tampering, or it’s tampered with later to throw a spin on it. Let’s be real here, I have had a really terrible past with drinking far too much and doing stupid shit, putting a spin on that was necessary for business,” he says.

“Or you could not get drunk and do stupid shit, no spin necessary and people’s lives aren’t in danger,” Steve points out, raising an eyebrow.

“There is a reason I don’t do the things I used to, Steve, aside from growing bored of shitty, hallow interactions and media bullshit. I can’t believe we had to make up a different backstory though, I thought ours was fun,” he says, pouting. It was certainly original and unusual, very Tony Stark in his opinion but what did he know?

“Me either. I mean I get that it wasn’t the most… _cute_ meeting in the world but it is original, and weirdly off the wall. That’s pretty par for the course with you, or at least I would have thought but I guess not,” Steve says.

“See, I thought the same thing!” Tony says, “I knew I wasn’t wrong.”

“Well yeah, I mean come on, who else but Tony Stark could possibly manage to pull a number off a bathroom stall and turn it into a relationship? It plays right into your ‘turns straw into gold’ image that everyone likes to play up,” Steve says.

“Right? But Christine is very much the expert in her field, I trust that she knows what she’s doing even if I don’t much care for a completely different origin story that doesn’t make a lot of sense when you squint too closely,” he says.

“People overheard us talking, the witnesses will back up the claims that I’m more than willing to call you out. It’ll be enough to make the story believable even if it doesn’t sound very real,” Steve says, “that’s why I chose it.”

Huh. Tony supposed he made a point about that, even if he still thought the story was stupid.

*

He curls up around Tony on the patio chair he had sitting on his deck and looked out at the impressive view. The mansion was beautiful, and it had to be some sort of architectural wonder considering it sat right _on_ the cliff. Tony drapes his arm over him and pulls him flush against his body and Steve happily goes, content to be as close to Tony as possible. “I meant what I said earlier,” he murmurs, “you can walk away if you want to, I won’t blame you for it,” he says.

Steve shifts a little, “Tony, I don’t know why you’re hung up on that but I’m not going anywhere, I wouldn’t have bothered to go through all that crap with Christine if I didn’t. I’m not leaving you,” he says somewhat forcefully, like he did with Bucky when he was feeling anxious and needed someone to tell him things were okay.

“Okay, but I don’t want you to feel obligated to stick around; being around me isn’t easy and not just because of the media. I have a lot of issues,” Tony says.

“Your AI makes comments about your drug abuse, Tony, I gathered that. And even without that I have eyes, I’ve seen enough videos of you stumbling around drunk or high to know you’re just a little fucked up. If I wasn’t prepared to deal with that, again, I wouldn’t have bothered with any of the efforts I’ve gone through thus far. I’m not going anywhere,” he repeats, “unless you want me to,” he throws in because he obviously wasn’t going to stay where he wasn’t wanted. That was both gross and creepy.

Tony’s arm tightens around him a little, “I’d rather you didn’t,” Tony says just a little too fast.

He ignores that because he figured Tony wouldn’t want attention drawn to a behavior he probably thought was embarrassing. “How is it possible for this house to sit on the edge of the cliff like it does? Wouldn’t it like… fall off or something?” he asks. Obviously that wasn’t happening here, but the house actually sat partially over the cliff, how it stayed up he had no clue.

Tony laughs, “actually it isn’t. Possible, I mean. At least that’s what everyone kept telling me, the people I had working with me on the project kept trying to get me to build it further back on the cliff but that wasn’t why I bought the property so finally I had enough and did the math. Clearly they were wrong,” Tony says, grinning.

“Seriously?” Steve asks, raising an eyebrow and Tony nods. “I think I might be in love with you,” he says, somewhat serious about that but fully prepared to play that off as a joke.

“Are you actually serious about that?” Tony asks. Shit. Well, he supposed a grand total of seventy two hours wouldn’t be _that_ hard to get over in the grand scheme of things.

“In the interest of keeping the lies only to the general public, yeah, a little bit,” he says and winces.

He doesn’t realize he had pulled away until Tony draws him closer again, “thank god, because I thought I was the only idiot who somehow managed to fall in love in less than a week. Now I feel less like a moron,” he says, sounding relieved.

“Right?” Steve says, “who _does_ that?” he asks, annoyed at his own stupid feelings.

“I know!” Tony agrees, “like I don’t even know your favorite colour, how do I love you? I mean like I do, but _what_? Gotta admit I did not see that coming,” he says.

“Don’t you dare make a joke, but my favorite colors happen to be red, white, and blue,” he says.

Tony lasts all of three seconds before blurting out, “how patriotic,” because he is an asshole.

“Fuck you,” Steve says, wrinkling his nose at Tony.

“What, not gunna ask what my favorite colour is?” Tony asks after a moment.

“It’s red, anyone with functioning eyes knows that, you wear it _all the time_ ,” he points out. He was wearing red at the moment, even.

“Good point. Should we do the ‘talk about the exes’ thing? Because I have to warn you this is the longest relationship I’ve ever had, including the one time I got married,” he says.

Steve smacks his palm to his forehead, “no Tony, that is not necessary. We’d be here all night covering your ‘relationships’ alone. I didn’t know you got married though, when did that happen?” he asks because that sounded like it was a fun story.

He sighs, “it was the early thousands, pretty sure I still had the frosted tips, and it lasted barely twenty four hours. I think that might have been the best relationship I ever had, you know, aside from this one,” he says.

“Oh man, if you had the frosted tips it totally doesn’t count. Clearly you were not in a good state of mind, poor woman,” he says, laughing. Tony seems to relax a little and Steve hadn’t noticed he had tensed but he supposed that made sense. Of course Tony would be nervous about that; it sort of highlighted everything he thought was wrong with him.

“That’s alright, I live with most of my exes, we’re all like one big, happy family that all dated each other and mostly decided that we didn’t click romantically,” he says.

“That’s kind of weird, but I mean my relationship history is one disaster after another in very, _very_ quick succession so I am clearly not qualified to give my opinion. I don’t think I’ve ever clicked romantically with anyone, not that I’ve ever had the desire to either. I guess at least your mature enough to manage to work things out with your exes, the only one I managed that with was Rhodey,” he says.

“You dated Rhodey?” Steve asks. They all had bets at home and he was about to win it because everyone else no homo’d the hell out of Tony and Rhodey’s obviously gay as hell relationship. Ha, take _that_ , Quill.

“Technically no, but he had a bicurious phase in college and came to the conclusion I was the only one he’d ever trust with his ass so. Mostly straight it was,” Tony says and Steve laughs.

“Wow, okay. I still won the bet though,” he says, grinning to himself.

“Bet?” Tony asks, frowning and right, that probably sounded bad.

“Peter and I made a bet years ago about whether or not you and Rhodey had ever dated or had sex and he insisted on no homoing the whole relationship, which, no. You guys are so gay together I’m shocked Rhodey didn’t get kicked out of the military,” he says.

“I made weapons and he was the liaison, no one was going to risk fucking up the biggest and best weapons deal they had because gay. He used to get a lot of looks though, before he finally told everyone to fuck off, then I stopped selling weapons and gay rights became a thing people paid attention to again so it didn’t matter in the end,” he says, “so what’s the prize?”

“One extra-large pizza and he has to do my chores for a month. So no laundry duty for me, awesome,” he says, genuinely pleased about that. He hated doing the laundry but that’s what he had been stuck with, and now Quill was stuck with the duty for the next month. Too bad it wasn’t winter, then he’d have to cart his ass down to the laundry mat in the snow and he’d twice as happy about his win. Maybe he’d hold off on telling Peter _just_ to avoid winter laundry. Yeah, he was going to do that.

“That is the lamest prize I’ve ever heard of,” Tony says, snickering.

“Speak for yourself, I’m waiting until winter to tell him about this so I won’t have to drag my ass out in the snow to do the laundry,” he says.

“Evil,” Tony says, shaking his head. Steve shrugs and accepts his fate.


	4. Chapter 4

He decides that real life sucked hard. His brief time away with Tony had been pleasant but now he was stuck back at work with Scott and Luis trying to figure out what went where. It hadn’t been his idea to work at an art gallery, he was content to keep his artistry on the side, but the position had become available and he happened to have an art degree so it made him look good even if his job didn’t technically involve doing art. “That thing is _creepy_ man,” Luis says, “that thing is not art and I stand by that.”

Scott looks over the sculpture Luis was in front of and frowns, “what _is_ that?” he asks. Steve looks over and starts laughing because these two were total idiots.

“Guys, it’s a mold of a vagina,” he says.

Luis and Scott squint at it, “are you sure?” Scott asks, tilting his head to the side in sync with Luis and trying to figure it out.

“Yeah I’m sure, you’ve got the vulva, labia, the clitoris is-” he starts, pointing to said parts of the anatomy.

Luis cuts him off, “oh my god, that’s a vagina mold! I’ve been moving lady parts around! I thought it was some wiggly lump-thing, but I don’t really _get_ sculptures you know? I’m more of neo-cubism kind of guy, it speaks to me on another level if you get what I’m saying but I totally see it now! The weird wiggly thing is vagina and I have no clue what this is supposed to mean but I think-” Luis starts ramping up to one of his well-known very long and convoluted rants but Scott cuts him off.

“Are you guys _sure_ this is a mold of some person’s bits? Like _positive_?” he asks.

“It is a vagina mold,” the owner of the studio says, looking annoyed with the three of them, “and the fact that I have to tell you that is probably why your wife left you,” she says. Luis makes a face and quickly wheels away with the sculpture to escape the wrath of their boss.

“Told ya,” Steve sing songs and Scott still looks confused, “Personally I blame the sorry state of the American sex education program,” Steve says and his boss gives him an approving nod. She liked him for some reason that no one could quite figure out because she was very much like a particularly fussy cat who hated everyone. Not that he minded, she was very accommodating when he got sick and he needed that in a boss so he didn’t bother questioning things.

“I know vaginas, I have a kid,” Scott points out, clearly offended that his knowledge of vaginas was being called into question.

“Clearly you don’t. Now get back to work,” she tells them and stalks off to go do whatever it was she was there to do.

They do as they’re told and begin to locate art pieces and stick them in their proper locations. “Is this even _now_?” Luis asks for the fifth time as he and Scott adjust the painting they were attempting to hang.

“No, it needs to go back a little to the left, no that’s too far why do you guys keep moving it inches over instead of just a bit, oh my god,” he says, annoyed that they had no clue what ‘just a little’ was.

Scott shoves the painting to the far right, “its supposed to be like that, it’s _art_ , its making a _statement_ they won’t even know. I mean if that pickled horse dong they had in here last month counts as art so does a sideways painting,” he says, throwing his hands up in frustration.

Luis examines the painting, “actually it looks better like that,” he says, frowning.

“I agree,” a new voice says and they look over to see a tall, vaguely familiar redhead standing there, “so which one of you is Steve Rogers?” she asks.

Damn. He had no idea why he always got stuck dealing with the customers. Yes, his boss liked him, but Scott was genuinely more likable and better with people, he should deal with them. Which was why they worked out a deal, “him,” Steve says gesturing to Scott.

Scott blinks in surprise and looks vaguely like he was trying very, very hard to compute something and failing. “Yes, it is I, _Steve_ ,” he says, sounding about as fake as he could possibly get.

The redhead does not look impressed, “I’m not stupid, I know you’re Steve Rogers, is there a reason you lied?” she asks.

“He’s better with the customers, I’m just trying to give you a good experience but Scott’s a fucking idiot and he doesn’t know how to lie like a normal human,” he says bluntly, irritated that Scott sold him out. Usually the customers didn’t care but this woman seemed intent on talking to him specifically.

“Follow me,” she says in a commanding tone and walks off, expecting him to follow.

“If I get murdered tell Peter Quill that he’ll have to battle to the death with Gamora over who gets my comic collection, but the Captain America stuff all goes to Phil Coulson,” he tells Scott and Luis, who nod solemnly and give him a mock salute. Way to make him feel better, guys. He follows after the redhead though and prays this didn’t end up with him being skewered or something.

She looks impatient with him by the time he catches up, “you don’t recognize me, do you?” she asks, arms crossed and pinning him with a surprisingly efficient glare.

He fights the urge to flippantly ask if he should because he had no desire for this to end in his imminent death, “Gwyneth Paltrow?” he asks, frowning. She looked familiar, yeah, but not familiar enough for him to have instant recognition. He can tell he said something wrong because she looked far less impressed with him now and he hadn’t initially known that was possible.

“I am _not_ Gwyneth Paltrow,” she says through gritted teeth, “I’m Pepper Potts,” she says and realization dawns on him. He felt like a total idiot now because _obviously_ this was Pepper Potts, duh. He was a moron.

“Shit,” he mumbles.

“‘Shit’ is right, I was not fond of you when I got here and you are never getting my approval now. I have no idea how the hell you managed to attach yourself to Tony so fast but I assure you whatever game you’re playing it ends _now_ ,” she snarls, stepping closer as she spoke.

“Um,” he squeaks out, considerably intimidated by Pepper. His phone rings and he takes it was a blessing and quickly fishes the thing out of his pocket because surely Pepper wouldn’t murder him on the phone, would she? That would leave witnesses and she seemed like she was a quick clean-up kind of girl, not the ‘kill everyone’ kind. “Hello?” he asks, not even bothering to look at the caller I.D lest Pepper use that time to strike.

“Shit, Pep already got to you, didn’t she?” Tony asks.

“I think you might have called right before I got my throat cut, she’s fucking _scary_ and this is coming from someone who lives with a woman that we’re all pretty sure has murdered people with her thighs,” he says. He’d look for an escape but his mother didn’t raise a fool, he knew not to give Pepper an opportunity to chase him down _then_ kill him.

“Can you give her the phone, please?” Tony asks and Steve extends the phone slowly and carefully to Pepper.

She snatches the phone, “what?” she snaps into the receiver. _Yikes_. He isn’t sure what Tony says to her but she doesn’t look any more calm by the time she hangs up and hands the phone back. He hoped he went to heaven for his efforts. She takes another step forward and he’d take another step back but his back was already against the wall in more ways than one. “If you even _blink_ the wrong way, if I suspect you are doing _anything_ to mess with Tony, and if you break his heart I will _end_ you,” she snarls.

“I believe that,” he whispers.

Pepper’s anger seems to ebb away and she smiles pleasantly at him, like they had just finished having coffee together, “good,” she says and walks away with a smile on her face. Somehow that was far more unsettling than the anger had been.

*

Steve pins the phone between his ear and his shoulder while he tried to maneuver whatever it was Clint had dropped in the sink out of the sink. They needed to have the ‘don’t leave food in the sink’ talk with him again and leave him to clean up his own mess like they had the last time. He had cried the stench was so bad and learned very well why the rest of them had wanted nothing to do with it. “Next time please have Pepper threaten me when I am not at work. I could have died and I work in an art gallery, someone probably would have thought my corpse was an art piece before a dead guy and I don’t really want people to assume my dead body has some deeper meaning,” he says.

He removes another layer of Clint goo and the last layer is worse than the one he just pulled up and he decides fuck it, it was time for Clint to clean his own shit. He had better, less deadly things to do. “I am so sorry,” Tony says, “I thought maybe I should like… tell her what was going on and she flipped out a little, she’s pretty protective but I didn’t anticipate her trying to eat you at work.”

Eyeing the layer of grime on the sink one last time he moves to wash his hands of filth so he could go find Clint and force him to clean up his mess. “It’s not like it’s your fault, and I mean Nat threatened you so it isn’t like I can complain too much. Not going to lie though, I actually thought that was the last day I was ever going to live and I was kind of mad that my last day alive was spent explaining what a vagina looks like to a grown man with a child,” he says. Scott still didn’t see it and Steve and Luis were both embarrassed for him and of him.

“I… how the hell did that get into in an art gallery?” Tony asks, understandably confused.

“There was an art piece,” he says in explanation and Tony makes a noise of understanding, “yeah. So anyways that was not how I wanted to spend my last day in earth, I have better plans than that,” he says.

Tony laughs, “yeah, like what?” he asks. He can hear Tony tinkering around with something in the background, probably some project he was working on.

“I would be the laziest lump in existence; I’d grab all my favorite foods and spend the rest of the day in your bed eating them and watching T.V,” he says, “and then celebrate that I won’t have to pay back my student loans.” That last one was a bit of an afterthought but still, it would be a glorious day when he didn’t have student debts to pay back and he would probably cry.

“You’d use my bed as your literal deathbed? I love you but no, go die in Rhodey’s bed,” Tony says, sounding vaguely horrified.

“Look, when I have a bed as soft and glorious as yours I will gladly die in it but until then I’m stuck with yours. And I am not dying in a military base, I want a pleasant last day, Tony,” he says, shaking his head and laughing.

“Fair point, only the young ones in the military are any fun,” Tony says, “so how did the return home go?” he asks.

“Ugh, awful. My shower pressure is horrible, Bucky is convinced you’ve brainwashed me, and now I’m used to sleeping beside someone so not only is my bed harder than a porn star’s dick but its fucking cold too. That’s partially because my room is drafty though,” he says, glaring at the offending drafty wall.

Tony bursts out laughing, “oh my god that is the best descriptor I have ever heard for a hard bed!” Tony says, “so is that your very roundabout way of saying you miss me?” he asks.

He grins, “yeah I guess so,” he says, pretending like it was a hardship he had to admit such a thing.

“Miss you too,” Tony says in a more serious tone, “I’ve been in business meetings all day with a bunch of European assbags complaining about how all my ideas suck and were impossible. They all shut up real quick when I showed them working prototypes so at least that was satisfying,” he says.

“Wow. What assholes, you’d think that working with you would teach them that ‘impossible’ and ‘Tony Stark’ don’t seem to go together well,” he says. Most of the work the guy did was impossible and couldn’t be replicated, which was why he was so successful; you’d think people would know that by now.

“Well I’m glad you think so,” Tony says, “that makes at least one person today, even Pepper seemed to doubt me and that’s really weird for her,” he says. There wasn’t really anything he could hear to inform him that that bothered Tony but he remembered how self-conscious he had been when they were in his lab, it was very clear that he put his self-worth in his tech. He got the feeling that when people doubted Tony’s work Tony doubted his existence as a whole and Pepper should probably know that by now and adjust her behavior. He keeps that to himself though because it was his fault Pepper doubted him to begin with.

“I’ve seen the stuff you’ve made, heard you talk about it, you know what you’re doing and what you’re talking about. If other people don’t see that they’re idiots,” he says. It was obvious, at least to him, that Tony was obviously a very capable person when it came to tech, it was whether or not something was profitable that was the problem and he suspected Tony invented things with profitability in mind.

Tony laughs softly, “thanks,” he says, “it’s nice to hear.”

“No need to thank me for pointing out the _abundantly_ obvious, I swear people are so stupid,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, ugh, speaking of stupid Justin Hammer tried to _speak_ to me today. What gave him the right?” Tony says in melodramatic tone and Steve bursts out laughing.

“Tony he’s just a guy, what is the big deal?” he asks. He had heard plenty about the rivalry, though he used that term in the loosest of ways given that Tony was leagues ahead of Hammer is every way, but he had no idea _how_ it happened.

“Justin Hammer is the worst most vial creature to have ever walked the earth ever and he needs to be _eradicated_ ,” Tony says, continuing with the melodrama.

“I… don’t think that can possibly be true,” he says, “but out of curiosity what started this… hatred? I always hear about this rivalry, and we both know you are the clear winner of that, but never how it started.”

“He stole my gold fish at summer camp once,” Tony says and Steve waits for a sold ten seconds for him to continue because that couldn’t be the whole story.

“You… he… the two of you loath each other because he stole your gold fish?” he asks, dumbfounded.

“They were _pizza flavored_ , Steve, they were the best kind of gold fish! And he _stole_ them and he’s been trying to steal everything of mine since then,” Tony says, defending his fish to the hilt.

“Oh my god that is the most melodramatic thing I have- just forgive him for stealing the gold fish, Tony, and how did it end up spiraling into you two being competitive in everything you two have done? And why is Hammer still trying? He’s never won,” he says. Even _he_ knew to give up before that point and he had a very big problem with knowing when to give up, it was probably why he hadn’t died off yet.

“Well he did win those gold fish, technically, so I’ll give him that. But anyways he stole my gold fish, so I stole all his chocolate chip cookies and replaced them with oatmeal raisin cookies. Then he ruined one of my projects that I was working on over the summer so destroyed everything he brought to camp, then he had the gall to steal one of towels to yell at me for it. Then we ended up both getting into MIT early but I was already graduating by the time he got there. Frankly I have no idea how he could possibly be competing with someone who has already won but I like to humor him to keep him humble and remind him that he is scum and I am a god, and he should remember that,” Tony says flippantly.

Steve was laughing so hard that he wasn’t even making noise anymore, “oh my god Tony, just let it go,” he says between fits of laughter.

“He stole my pizza flavored gold fish and he will pay for that every day for the rest of his life, literally, because I’m putting him out of business. Which I think is why he tried to bask in my presence today but I am an ethereal sun and he is a bottom ocean dweller and he need not see my glory and I need not see that ugly and scary shit he calls a face,” Tony says dramatically.

It didn’t happen that often, but sometimes he laughed so hard his lungs just sort of… stopped and Tony’s declaration of being an ethereal sun was enough for the stupid things to quit, sending him into a fit of coughing. He manages to scramble his inhaler and he even manages to suck in enough air to make the damn thing work its breathing magic. It takes a minute but eventually his lungs stop acting up and he can breathe enough to talk, “oh my god,” he croaks out, “seriously?” he asks.

“Are you okay?” Tony asks, concerned, “because it sounded like talking about Justin Hammer almost killed you and that just makes me hate him more because how dare he?” he says and he barely manages to keep from going into another coughing fit inspired by laughter.

“Where have you been all my life?” he rasps, “because I have been missing the hell out.”

Bucky bursts in the door then looking overly worried, “are you okay?” he all but yells.

“Yes Bucky, I am fine, please calmly exit my room,” he says confidently.

“But I heard you coughing,” he says, which was impressive because Bucky had been asleep and he slept so well he literally slept through a hurricane once.

“I’m fine now, Buck, out you go,” he says firmly.

He stands there for a minute unsure of what to do because he wanted to press the matter farther but he also didn’t want to invade Steve’s space so his solution was to yell for Natasha, who always seemed to be the one settling these things. “If he says he’s fine leave him be, Bucky!” she yells back.

“But-” he starts.

“Leave him!” Natasha yells and Bucky slinks away, slowly so he can make sure Steve isn’t about to drop dead for as long as humanly possible before he closes the door and presumably slinks back to the living room to pout.

“What was that?” Tony asks, confused.

Steve sighs, “Bucky, my best friend, he has some weird anxiety issues that got worse after we were in a car accident a few years ago. No idea why though, I was the only one who actually managed to not get hurt, he lost an arm, you’d think he’d be the one he’d worry about but no. He worries about me instead,” Steve says.

“I’d say that’s sweet but that’s actually a really sad story,” Tony says, “sorry about the uh, asthma attack,” he says.

“Don’t worry about it, if all my asthma attacks started with me laughing that hard they’d probably be a lot more pleasant,” he says. Granted that was a minor attack at best but still, Bucky was bound to hover for the next week.

“Actually you’d probably associate asthma attacks with laughter and learn not to laugh, conditioning sucks. Trust me, I accidentally conditioned myself to eat to horror movies and I can’t stop it, it’s horrible. So the fact that your lungs don’t stop doing lung things only when you laugh is probably a good thing,” he says.

Steve frowns, “how the hell did you condition yourself to eat to horror movies?” he asks.

Tony sighs, “so in college for some reason Rhodey and I _really_ loved horror as a genre so we watched a lot of horror movies. But like we’d party all night and sleep all day so when we woke up it was perfect horror movie mood but also we were fucking starving because we spent all night partying so I’d make food and he’d pick the movie. Now it’s been like two decades and every time I watch a horror movie I get the uncontrollable urge to eat,” he says.

“You made the food?” Steve says skeptically.

“I use that term in the loosest of manners. Once I made ramen noodles except the sink was so full of dishes I couldn’t use the water and I didn’t want to walk to the bathroom or something so I used a dash of vodka and melon liqueur for water. It tasted like ass but it was so worth it not to have to do those dishes. I’m pretty sure we ended up throwing them all out and buying new ones every two weeks,” he says. Steve gives the phone a look, which Tony couldn’t see of course, but he told him that he was judging him just so he knew. He couldn’t argue that he’d do the same thing if he had the means though because Clint was gross and cleaning his dishes was a horrifying task.

He hears Pepper yell something to Tony in the background of the call and he can hear Tony shuffle around, “shit, give me a minute!” he yells to Pepper, “sorry I have to go some asshole took a shit in the south and I have to go clean up the mess,” he says.

“Uh, I’ll pretend to know what the hell that meant but alright. Good luck cleaning up the, ugh, shit?” he asks, frowning to himself.

Tony sighs, “yeah, god damn asshole just check the fucking inventory list,” he mumbles under his breath, “anyways I’ll talk to you soon, okay? Love you,” he says.

“Yeah, love you too. Bye.”

*

“Would you _stop_ looking at me like that, Bucky?” he asks, annoyed with the staring. He was looking at Steve like that guy from the bee movie stared at his girlfriend when she said she was going to help the bee sue the human race. He got it, really, this was fucking insane and it made no sense but if he could give it up that would be wonderful.

Bucky sighs, “alright Steve. Let’s map this out from start to finish,” he says, “this where you two met,” he says and circles the day he and Tony met, “and this is _now_ ,” he circles today’s date on the calendar, “love is _not_ possible in here,” he says and scribbles all over the six days in between.

“I have no clue why you’re talking to me like I’m a child who doesn’t know how to keep track of time but I am well aware that I sound insane. Last week I would agree that I am currently acting insane but you know what, something happened and I don’t know what and it makes no sense, I agree. But leave it to me to figure out, please,” he says in a forceful tone that usually worked with Bucky. He understood that he was worried but he didn’t appreciate the way Bucky was currently going about it.

“Steve, what the hell? Look, I have no idea what the hell he wants from you but you should probably run the hell away because _no one_ falls in love that fast,” he points out.

He rubs his temples because Bucky’s logic made no fucking sense here. “Bucky, what the hell do I have that Tony doesn’t? A shit ton of student and hospital debts? I doubt he wants that, hell; all of my debt wouldn’t even put a dent in his wealth. My good looks and charm? Even if I did have any good looks and charm to speak of he is plenty good looking and charming enough for like seven people let alone two. Sex? Clearly he can, and has, gotten that where ever he wanted it from people way more appealing than me in every way so what is it, Bucky, that I have that he doesn’t? Because from where I’m standing I have abso-fucking-lutely nothing that he could possibly want, if anything I’d be using him for some really obvious reasons. So please, _please_ , just let me ride this out and be happy for once,” he says and he turns on his heel and marches off to his room.

It should have occurred to him that Bucky wouldn’t just let him walk away upset like that but it doesn’t for some reason. Bucky goes to open the door and Steve holds up his hand, “no, just leave me alone right now, please,” he says and Bucky barely hesitates before closing the door. That in itself was telling but he ignores it in favor of working off his anger before he attempted another conversation with Bucky.

Sometime later he hadn’t left his room but he had managed to beat like fifty levels of candy crush and that was one of his most embarrassing accomplishments ever. Someone knocks on the door and he’s about to tell Bucky to leave him be but Natasha informs him it was not Bucky. “Come in,” he says somewhat grudgingly. He didn’t want to deal with anyone because everyone except for Clint and Coulson everyone was acting like assholes, well, and Nat but that was because she hadn’t been home much between work and classes. But he figures if nothing else he might as well use her to ease Bucky’s anxieties a bit if he must.

“Look, I get why everyone is freaking out, but no one did this when Quill and Gamora accidentally got married in Tahiti and not one person questioned Phil being a registered minister, which I for one think is way dumber that your situation,” she says. Well, at least they were off to a better start than anyone else but the bar hadn’t been that high. She climbs onto his bed and stretches out like a cat, “and personally I have no idea why Bucky is worried, you’ve always been the more capable of the two of you,” she says.

He snorts, “because I’m small and have health issues people think I can’t do stuff and he isn’t any different,” he says. He resented that, really, and he knew that Bucky was only trying to help but he wasn’t helping at all, he was making it worse.

“I’m not so sure. I know you think that, but you have a tendency to only see flaws in yourself. The only people who don’t take you seriously are the ones that are jealous that people who listen to you. And there are a lot of people who listen to you, Steve. You have a very powerful and charismatic personality, the kind that would be dangerous if you weren’t such a good person. It really doesn’t surprise me that Tony became attached so fast, a brief glance at his past and present show that’s he’s very much attracted to powerful personalities, probably to balance his own, though that doesn’t usually end well for him or others. I’m a bit surprised that his love is reciprocated; you have a tendency towards the suspicious when it comes to authority figures but I assume you’ve seen or experienced something we haven’t. I’ll talk to Bucky,” she says.

This was why he liked Nat, even if he thought she was wrong about people listening to him, she didn’t tend to judge. “Thank you,” he says, “I appreciate that you assume I know what I’m talking about, that’s a fresh change.” He rolls his eyes because as absurd as it sounded he’d at least give the person in his situation the benefit of the doubt, even if he was skeptical. “I mean Bucky’s dating you and we have good evidence that you’re a spy who has straight up killed people, and might be immortal. I don’t judge him for his dating choices,” he says.

Natasha laughs, “I can’t believe you guys found a picture of some woman that looked like me and came to the conclusion that I’m immortal, that isn’t even possible,” she says, shaking her head, “the spy thing is up for debate though. Frankly you shouldn’t judge Bucky for his dating choices, I’m a delight,” she says unironically.

“You and Tony would get along famously, he thinks he’s a delight too,” Steve says.

“Yeah, but I actually _am_ a delight, not just good looking. No offense,” she says, grinning at him.

“Fair enough. On the immortal thing though, I’ve seen enough impossible things in the last week to come to the conclusion that nothing is real, everything is a lie. You should see some of the things Tony has built, his house is like a sci-fi novel come to life. It’s amazing, honestly,” he says earnestly.

“I don’t doubt that, I’ve done my research,” she says and Steve raises an eyebrow, “what? I wanted to know he wasn’t messing with you somehow, I mean you did come back pretty star-struck and you aren’t exactly the star-stuck type. I think the fact that Pepper Potts went through the trouble of hunting you down and threatening you accurately displays Tony’s investment so I figured you knew what you were doing, even if Bucky doesn’t think so.”

“You’re the best, Nat,” he says, “and out of curiosity would you start a life-long rivalry if someone stole your pizza flavored gold fish?” he asks. Natasha was a logical person; he figured she’d prove him right on Tony being ridiculous.

“Fuck yeah,” she says deadpan, “you don’t fuck with my pizza flavored gold fish, I will cut a bitch, even of Clint is that bitch,” she says.

“Oh my god, what is wrong with you and Tony? That’s how that whole rivalry with him and Hammer started, over pizza flavored gold fish that Hammer stole. That’s absurd!” he says, waving his hands around.

“Steve, they’re _pizza flavored_ ,” she says in an urgent tone, like she was willing him to understand her weird assumption that starting a life-long rivalry with someone over flavored snacks was logical.

“You and Tony would get along, I think, assuming you keep the threats to yourself,” he says.

“I’ve said my bit; I think he’s been sufficiently warned. I’ll hold Bucky off,” she says.

“How?” he asks because Bucky was far too overprotective sometimes.

“I’m sure he doesn’t want to get into another prank war with me after the last time,” she says casually, like the ensuing disaster of her and Gamora teaming up to ruin their lives in the most subtle and inconvenient ways should ever be repeated. Never again did he want the brand of laundry soap switched without his knowledge because he had been _so itchy_. And stealing only one shoelace from the shoes. And putting salt in the ice cubes. _Clint_. Never again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gunna wait some but then I though nah, might as well post stuff now :)

It was a long and boring few days of meetings and board members that Tony would rather fire than deal with though that wasn’t exactly possible. If only. That would certainly make his life easier. And then there was Pepper. He loved her, really, and he knew that she only wanted what was best for him but he wasn’t a moron for gods sakes. He knew, to a point, how to care for himself. “Tony, I’m worried about his motivations,” she says earnestly and really, he understood.

That didn’t mean he appreciated being told that she knew his feelings better than he did. “I know Pep, but I’m not exactly a stranger to people using me for my money, I’d like to think that by now I’ve learned the signs and none of them are there. So if you could just… let me figure this out with minimal judgement that would be awesome,” he says.

He can see her silently judging him and he fully anticipated a call from Rhodey sometime in the next day made under Pepper’s instructions. “Fine, Tony, but please be careful,” she says. Read: if he fucks you over I told you so. It was one of Pepper’s more irritating qualities, her purposefully pointing out when she was right when it really wasn’t necessary. Not that he didn’t still love her, and realistically his personality flaws were… his whole personality so he figured he probably shouldn’t complain.

“I know what I’m doing, Pep, but thanks,” he says and Pepper doesn’t even bother to try not giving him a judgmental look for that. “Look, this can’t be worse than the time I got married, it lasted less than a day,” he says.

“Well judging from the Romeo and Juliet time frame for your current fling I half expect another marriage and I hope it doesn’t lead to six deaths,” she says, “but if you think you know what you’re doing, fine.” She gives him a tight smile and he fights the urge to be mad about her apparent lack of faith in his ability to handle his own life. It was hardly her fault history proved that he was embarrassingly bad at handling anything that wasn’t tech, but especially emotions.

“That’s a bit melodramatic,” he says because it was, as if six people would end up dead. Yes, he understood that this was not exactly a normal situation but it wasn’t as if he and Steve were completely unaware of that. They weren’t idiots, they knew that somehow managing to fall in love in less than a week was insane at best and he was certain that Steve would agree that their friends’ judgments did not do much to change that. Actually it did the opposite and he had no clue why Pepper would react this way when, in most situations, telling him that he couldn’t or shouldn’t do something made him do the thing more. Like that time his nanny told him _not_ to stick the fork in the light socket so he jammed it in there just because he was told not to and the hell if he knew how he survived that.

The Stark legacy, everyone.

“That coming from you on the best of days would be a joke, but after you somehow manage to fall in love after two minutes? I don’t think I am the over dramatic one here, Tony, just tell me you’ll be vigilant?” she asks, pleads really. Instead of dignifying that with an answer he glares at her and takes his coffee down to his lab because that was uncalled for.

Rhodey, as it turns out, didn’t bother waiting until morning to call and he even upgrades to a video call. Or maybe where he was it was morning. He didn’t keep track of Rhodey’s time zones because they changed so much and because nine times out of ten he was awake at whatever shitty time Rhodey called at. Severe insomnia was a bitch, though he probably slept better in the last week than he had… ever. That was probably a fluke though, after months of sleeping badly he usually slept well for a bit as if his body was trying to catch up on lost time, it just happened to coincide with Steve appearing in his life.

They stare at each other silently for a moment, “I’m going to assume your feelings are genuine,” Rhodey finally says and Tony gives him a look. “I’m also going to assume you’re well aware of how nuts you sound and I know full well that you have trust issues, love or no you’ll be watching this guy like a hawk. How’d you two meet?” he asks.

This was what he loved about Rhodey, he _got_ Tony in a way most other people didn’t and he didn’t assume Tony was a total moron, even when he was being one. Rhodey expected _better_ of him and he liked that because it meant that he honestly had to try to earn his friendship and when he didn’t live up Rhodey told him so and expected him to change his behavior. For Tony it meant that Rhodey was looking for an actual connection, not a cash advancement. People didn’t care how they were treated if they got a nice payout, at least not in his experience.

“I called a random number on the side of a bathroom stall, he answered,” he says.

For a moment Rhodey doesn’t say anything and then he sighs, looking off into the distance like he did when he thought Tony was doing something dumb. “You two are made for each other,” he says and ends the call. He laughs because yeah, Rhodey got it; he knew he did from the look. Just because he thought Tony was doing something dumb didn’t meant he didn’t think Tony might be right, he got the same look when he decided to stop selling weapons. In the end Rhodey had supported him though, just like always, and he knew he had that support now even if Rhodey didn’t outright say it. He didn’t need to, at this point they knew each other well enough that they didn’t need verbal communication to know what the other was saying half the time. When they were in the same room they had entire conversations with eyebrows and it freaked people out, which was obviously why they continued to do it.

Pepper calls roughly an hour later, probably hoping Rhodey had told him he was an idiot and he was happy to smugly rub Rhodey’s support in her face. As it turned out she had already covered her bases and got her own update from Rhodey so he didn’t get to gloat too much, which greatly offended him because he had been looking forward to the gloating. “I knew Rhodey would get it,” he says, grinning and leaning back in his desk chair.

“I love Rhodey, I do, but I have no idea why he doesn’t think you’re being ridiculous,” she says, annoyed.

“Because Rhodey _gets_ me, Pepper,” he says.

“So do I, which is why I don’t understand this! You don’t do love, or relationships, at least not the romantic kind, or… or emotions as a whole!” she says, exasperated.

“Well, I changed my mind,” he says. By all means, it made no sense, he knew. And last week if someone told him love was in the forecast he would have laughed in their face if he was that polite about it, but things were different now. Even if he had no idea how, or why, they just _were_. There was just something about Steve that drew him in, something that seemed to _stabilizing_ about him and Tony wanted more of that. He was so sure and when he was around Tony felt sure too, and comfortable. Frankly he didn’t understand why Pepper couldn’t be like Rhodey and understand that yeah, this was weird, but that was _Tony_.

*

He hadn’t expected to be so excited when Tony had gotten back to New York but he spent the day barely paying attention to his classes due to the excitement buzzing under his skin. Bucky was still under the impression that he was nuts but he let it go after Natasha told him to drop it, thankfully. She was a good friend, even if she also sort of thought he was nuts. Natasha, however, recognized that Steve was in charge of his own damn life so he was happy to deal with her thinking he was nuts because she knew to keep it to herself. Tony had apparently been dealing with the same treatment from Pepper, which hadn’t surprised him much, but Rhodey seemed fine with it. Apparently Rhodey understood Tony in a way Pepper didn’t, or interpreted the situation differently. Either way Tony was a petty asshole and he took every chance he got to rub that in Pepper’s face.

When class ends he all but runs out, ignoring the attention this draws from the rest of his classmates in favor of heading off to SI. He found it a bit weird that Tony would locate himself _in_ the building he worked at but this was Tony, he seemed to be one for both strangeness and efficiency so it made sense, Steve supposed, in a weird way. He doesn’t expect his visit to be ruined by Christine’s presence though and from the grin on her face she was happy about ruining his day. “I hope all your bras are deeply uncomfortable,” he says.

She laughs, “well, at least you know what would cause me genuine pain and suffering. Let’s hope you know how to do that with other people too because you’ll need that skill,” she tells him and walks through the elevator door when it dings and opens into Tony’s penthouse. Steve blinks for a moment because he didn’t think it would be nicer than a mansion but apparently he was wrong. He keeps that to himself though because he was sure Tony was aware of what money could buy.

“Did she _have_ to be here?” he asks Tony when he sees him. Tony looks as irritated with Christine’s presence as he did and that seemed to do little more than fuel her glee.

“No, but she _insisted_ ,” he says glaring at Christine before walking over to give him a kiss.

“Can we _insist_ she leave?” he asks sweetly, smiling at her sarcastically.

“That’s cute Rogers, but you need me. Now, public appearances, we should do one of those before the media starts to make a spectacle out of the two of you, people are suspicious as it is and we want to stay ahead of the curve. Don’t you have some gala thing you have to go to later this week?” she asks sweetly, clearly expecting Tony to agree to whatever plan she had, presumably one that involved Steve making an appearance at whatever event she just mentioned.

“It’s some boring thing with politicians and shit, I doubt he wants to go to that,” Tony says and Steve laughs.

“Oh no, I would _love_ to sit in a room full of politicians and tell them that their platforms are shit,” he says enthusiastically.

“I knew you would,” Christine says, looking pleased, “so what do you say, Tony?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

“You baited Steve on purpose for your own ends!” he says, offended.

“I’m happy to follow along with this manipulation, I’ve been waiting years to insult Grant Ward,” he says happily.

“I know honey, and I’m gunna make _all_ your dreams come true,” Christine says, smiling like she knew something he didn’t. Tony pulls him closer out of what Steve was certain was jealousy, which was hilarious because he had less than no interest in Christine. Actually he outright disliked her.

Tony sighs, “can we like… run with a script here or something because this is bound to go horribly,” he says and Steve gives him a look, “what? I have to stay in business and you’re cut throat, people will _not_ be happy with whatever it is you have to say to them.”

He squints at Tony, “you used to regularly drive under the influence of whatever it is you managed to shove down your gullet, thought war profiteering was a good thing, you don’t vote, and although you have a clear interest in helping people you’re so far removed from the issues you’ve tried to help with you’ve done more to hurt than help. After all of that you think my telling politicians that they’re shitty people is what will put you out of business? Be real, Tony, you’re work is so far ahead of everything else that’s currently in production that no one would be stupid enough to stop investing in you, which is why people still invest in you even though your reputation is trash at best. I can assure you nothing I say could possibly say that is worse than the things you’ve already done. I am fond of the puny ‘Stark naked’ headlines though,” he says.

Tony’s grip on his waist loosens a little, “ouch,” he says, looking away.

“Just pointing out the obvious,” Steve says, “but seriously though, no one is stupid enough to stop investing in a guy that’s so smart he had to basically invent his own language to describe the work he’s doing. Trust me; people will still want to capitalize off someone who has managed to make money so hard that when he shut down the most profitable part of his business it only took a year and a half to get all the money he lost back and make millions more. Not to mention when you took over SI within three years it went from a million dollar company to a billion dollar company and you were only twenty four by the time that happened. History proves that regardless of whatever crazy shit is happening in your life it doesn’t affect the quality of your work, at least not in a negative way. I’m sure your business won’t suffer if I tell Brock Rumlow he’s fucking neo-Nazi with a complex,” he says.

“And cut,” Christine says and she lowers her phone, “I hope you don’t mind when I casually ‘leak’ this video.”

“What the fuck?” Tony and Steve ask in sync.

“What? People are going to take one look at Steve’s stances on… everything and assume he’s fake and looking for attention. I want to ruin the idea that he isn’t authentic before someone even thinks to question it,” she says. As much as Steve didn’t like it he could see what she was doing here and it was, to a point, necessary.

“Why does this fucking authenticity thing even matter?” Tony snaps, irritated.

Steve sighs, “authenticity matters because people don’t like feeling like they’re being lied to. You don’t have a problem with it because you’re so… _you_. There hasn’t been a time in your life when you weren’t crazy over the top dramatic, extremely intelligent, rich, good looking, whatever else. Me on the other hand? I’m a total wild card and people are invested in you, they _care_ about you and if I don’t genuinely live up to the image Christine makes for me they’ll come for blood, possibly literally,” he says.

“Think Taylor Swift,” Christine says, “people flip flop on how much they love and hate her so fast she must get whiplash and all because she doesn’t always match the perfect archetype people think she should. Only people like you more, relate to you more, you’ve been cast as the American Dream personified and if Steve doesn’t look like he deserves to achieve that American Dream he’s dead,” she says bluntly.

Tony looks floored, “what the hell? That can’t possibly be right, I’ve never had a problem with this,” he points out.

“Because the image you made for yourself actually is authentic. You really are the eccentric billionaire who’s a bit of a dumbass, which only serves to make you relatable instead of unattainable, who is so brilliant he often loses track of himself and the real world when he’s invested in his projects. And an asshole. There’s no need for you to live up to an image because the image of you is you, or could be constructed so that it sounds like you,” Steve points out. How Tony had no idea how celebrity authenticity worked he’d never know but even that lived up to the ‘slightly clueless as to how everyone else works but look at the cool thing I built’ image he had.

“Oh,” Tony says, frowning.

“Points to blondie for having a better grasp on celebrity culture than the celebrity. You two were made for each other,” Christine says, “so anyways, back to my plans.”

*

“Are you sure about this?” Tony asks and that must be getting on Steve’s nerves, his constantly questioning this.

He doesn’t look annoyed though, just resigned to the knowledge that he was going to have to explain this again. “Yes, Tony, I am sure. I am very aware of how celebrity culture works and I know how much people are invested in you as a person, I knew what I was getting into when this started and I went ahead with it anyways,” he says firmly, convincingly. He still couldn’t help wondering if Steve really believed that or if he was sticking around out of obligation or… well; Pepper did have a point about the timeline of their relationship. “Tony, if nothing else I’m about to get an opportunity to tell like so many politicians what I think of them and that alone would make all of this worth it if things happen to go to hell,” he says, looking truly gleeful about this.

“But… dating me is a literal hazard to your health,” he says, “does that not… bother you?” he asks. No normal person could possibly not care about that, right? No, no one would want that, it was just logical.

“My body tries to kill me on a regular basis; this really doesn’t put me in any more danger than I already am by virtue of living in a body more invested in my death than my life. I’m worried, sure, that’s pretty normal, but that doesn’t affect my feelings for you,” he says, squeezing his hand. Tony relaxes, not realizing how much he had wanted to hear that until he did.

Unfortunately his relief is short lived because Steve hadn’t been kidding about insulting politicians and he knew the platforms well, better than the politicians themselves if the confusion his eloquent rants were met with were any indication. Christine was loving it but that wasn’t a surprise, the woman thrived off drama more than he did and that was saying something. “I can’t believe he told Grant Ward he’s seen more compelling evidence that he was a serial killer than a good politician. And Rumlow got way worse than ‘neo-Nazi with a complex’,” Tony says.

“So far the only one he got along with is Lehnsherr and even then he told the guy every conclusion he’s ever come to was extreme and made no sense, but the analysis was sound,” she says. “Pretty sure Lehnsherr would have fought him on it but Charles swooped in and saved everyone from that impending disaster.” Of course Christine would look happy about this, she was a terrible person and Tony was so nervous he was tempted to swallow the whole bar if it wouldn’t go over horribly with Steve.

His nervousness, however, is completely dropped when Justin Hammer decides to try his luck with Steve and quickly gets shut down. “Look buddy, I get that you have a weird obsession with Tony and I know you think this is a competition but he won forever ago. You’d be better described as everything Tony is not, not his competitor. Just admit that you clearly have a big, neon crush on the guy and find a better way to show it than pulling his metaphorical pigtails,” he says, rolling his eyes.

Hammer looks floored for a second, “oh, that is _not_ true!” he sputters, unable to come up with something better.

“Really?” Steve says with such sarcasm and condescension in his tone that Tony almost felt bad for Hammer. Almost. “I’m sure that’s why you always seem to try your best to emulate the Tony Stark image and you fail _miserably_. Don’t deny it, you’re currently wearing Tony Stark Look Circa 1997, which is the _worst_ era of Tony to try an emulate in every way. Give up and follow someone else’s dream,” he says bluntly. Hammer tries, and fails, to come up with something better and eventually he gives up to wander away because Tony was laughing so hard it was drawing attention.

“And you,” Steve says, looking at him, “give up on the damn gold fish, I can’t believe you started a lifelong rivalry over that. You’re a grown assed man, act like one,” he says. He might have been offended at that but it was fair. Plus also he just tore Hammer to shreds and told him to stop pulling Tony’s pigtails; at that point there wasn’t much that could ruin his mood.

“Was is strictly necessary to call Grant Ward a serial killer?” he asks sometime later when everyone seemed to have learned that Steve Will Fight, Stay Away.

“Technically I said that I’ve seen more evidence that he killed people than helped them and yes, it was necessary,” he says, looking pleased with himself.

“Fine, but you could have included ‘neo-Nazi with a complex’ when you tore Rumlow a new one. I kind of liked that one and I’m sad he’ll never know,” Tony says. Rumlow had looked so surprised, then angry, then he had tried to argue with Steve but Steve had anticipated all of his arguments before he had even made them and smacked them all down with shocking efficiency.

“Oh I’d be happy to tell him that,” Steve says, grinning.

“Actually I lied, I think I can do without, I’m pretty sure everyone here hates me now,” he says, not that he minded. They hadn’t much liked him before given the whole not selling weapons anymore thing and Steve had only served to put him in more of a liberal stance than he was in before.

“Me too, except the internet has gotten ahold of our shiny new relationship and Bucky is banned from using computers because people don’t seem to like me much,” Steve says. He doesn’t look upset about this though Tony figured he probably should be. It wasn’t like Steve was used to negative press, at least not on this large of a scale.

“How did that lead to Bucky being banned from computers?” he asks.

“People are mean, and they seem to emphasize my being short for some reason. Don’t look so upset, just as many people seem to like me as they do hate me, it just so happens that the people who don’t like me are louder. Which led to Bucky being banned from computers because he can’t fight the internet,” he says and he laughs. He was surprised how well Steve seemed to deal with this but then he hadn’t had the press do stupid shit to try and get pictures of him in the shower yet so maybe he was like… in shock or something. He didn’t seem fame hungry, Tony knew what that was like because he was sort of fame hungry, so Pepper couldn’t complain about that at least. And according to Christine anyone who did their research would know that Steve had agreed with everything he had tossed out tonight long before he had ever met Tony, which was important apparently. It had never occurred to him that all those headlines about the ‘real’ Tony Stark were actually questioning whether or not he actually had his personality.

“Yeah, people suck. I had a guy try to kill me once because I slept with his wife, which makes no sense because I wasn’t married to the guy so I wasn’t the problem, and she didn’t tell me she was married. My favorite assassination attempt will forever be that one woman who thought I was deathly allergic to shellfish for some reason so she threw some straight at my mouth. Points for creativity and good taste in shellfish,” he says, grinning.

Steve looks horrified, “oh my god, that’s horrible,” he says. And _there_ was the normal reaction to people attempting to kill celebrities. Misplaced faith in the human race, Tony decides, was clearly the cause of Steve’s normative reactions. He didn’t blame Steve for thinking people couldn’t _possibly_ be fucked up enough to actually try and kill off celebrities, and people who succeeded were pretty rare, but the attempts were plentiful. Eventually it sort of became a part of everyday life that generally unpleasant, like taking out the garbage. Actually Tony had no frame of reference for that so maybe not.

“It’s not so bad. People are really bad at being assassins; also that woman clearly wanted me to die happy because that shellfish was pretty awesome. You look tired though, do you want to go?” he asks. Steve was drooping slightly and he was leaning into Tony more than he had a half hour ago.

“I’m fine,” he says, a knee-jerk reaction, “if you wanna stay.”

Tony snorts, “after you reamed that guy’s ass when he made some rude comment about having obesity and famine epidemics at the same time I’m somewhat frightened of the conversations you might have with these people,” he says.

His comment seems to energize Steve because he suddenly looks more awake, “well when he can make the obvious connection that both problems are related to poverty and the fact that food, if it’s even there, costs triple when it’s healthy then he can comment. Until then he can keep his ignorant and uninformed opinions to himself,” he snaps.

“See? Clearly the stupidity you have had to deal with all night has drained you of energy, let’s go home,” he says, gently pulling Steve toward the nearest exit.

*

When Steve wakes up Tony isn’t in the bed beside him so he stretches himself out and lays there for a moment before resolving himself to getting up. Bucky had text him a few rants about people on the internet, which was unsurprising and kind of sweet that he cared. Steve didn’t bother looking because he knew what it was all going to say anyways and Bucky’s rants had pretty much confirmed his suspicions. People loved him, people hated him, people thought he was using Tony for money, people thought he was legit, people didn’t give a fuck, and people were mad that Tony was dating someone. Pretty much what happened every time some celebrity started a relationship with someone new.

Tony looks terrified when he exits the bedroom, probably having read at least some of what people had said via internet or media outlet. Or both. “I didn’t bother googling my name this morning, Bucky pretty much summed up exactly what I figured would happen. People will get over it, Tony,” he says and rubs his eyes tiredly. He walks over to Tony and sits in his lap, “I’m not going anywhere,” he reminds him because he probably needed to hear it. He would have assumed that Tony would think he was the greatest thing ever, and to a point he did, but he also seemed to think that under no circumstances would anyone stay with him for longer than two seconds.

Circumstances with him were different, yes, and they sure as hell weren’t ideal, but that didn’t make him feel any less willing to date Tony. Tony circles his arms around him, “you’re too good for me,” he says quietly.

He snorts, “pretty sure people think that you’re too good for me,” he says, “it’s kind of true.”

“People are fucking stupid,” Tony says.


	6. Chapter 6

Natasha had the best resting bitch face ever; it was so frightening it scared the press off. “Are you okay?” she asks earnestly, leaning forward a little in genuine interest.

“I’m fine and please _please_ don’t turn into Bucky. I like that you’re the voice of reason,” he says. Bucky had been on high alert lately because of the recent press he’s gotten, and Tony too. Both of them were overly anxious though for completely different reasons and he had his hands full quelling their anxieties without having to add Nat to the mix too.

She examines his face like she was looking for him to lie but she seems to decide that he wasn’t. “Are you sure? People have said some _really_ cruel shit to you to your face let alone on the internet,” she says.

He shrugs, “that actually isn’t new, almost everything I’ve heard is stuff people used to say to me all the time until I got to college and people were too stressed about their papers and exams to care what I looked like or who I did or didn’t date. I mean the using Tony for his money thing is new, but the blatant homophobia, insulting my looks, my beliefs, none of that is new. It’s just on a larger scale now, which sucks, but this is all stuff I’ve learned to cope with before and to be honest I have better things to do than hate myself because other people hate me for no reason,” he says.

Natasha smiles, “you’re so much stronger than Bucky gives you credit for. How’s Tony handling this?” she asks. She seemed to be the only one aside from Peter, oddly, who thought he was handling this the way he was ‘supposed’ to but frankly none of them even knew what that meant. Hell, _he_ didn’t know what that meant and he was in the situation. He just sort of… dealt with it. Bucky thought he should be angry, Clint thought he should have waited to see if his relationship even lasted longer than two minutes, and everyone else had opinions too.

He sighs, “terribly. You’d think with how arrogant he is he’d think he was the best thing since sliced toast and I mean to a point he does, but other times it’s like he expects everyone to just abandon him at any moment because he’s such a disaster. That must give him emotional whiplash,” he says. If he wasn’t used to that sort of thing with Bucky it’d give _him_ emotional whiplash.

“Well,” Nat says, “it isn’t as if he has the greatest track record in respects to people caring about him. He only has two real friends and one of them works for him, he probably _does_ expect you to walk away, especially because of the media. I hope you remind him that you aren’t going to do that, and that you mean it,” she says, raising an eyebrow at the end. So she still had her doubts though this time they were at least a little more well-founded.

“You know I do, and of course I mean it. I wouldn’t toy with someone’s emotions like that, it’s cruel,” he says.

“Do you?” she asks, “genuinely want to stay, even after the media storm that has either over glorified you or treated you as some sort of parasite? I’m not asking to be an asshole, I just want to know that you’re okay and that you really do want this before it’s too late and you’re stuck in a situation you don’t know how to get out of. Or, and I’m assuming this is the option you’re going to prefer, you are as fine as a person in this situation can be and Peter and I have to kick everyone else’s asses into shape to support you instead of questioning you at every turn,” she says. “Honestly Bucky’s ranting about Tony is annoying _me_ let alone you, I don’t know how you do it sometimes,” she shakes her head and takes a sip of her coffee.

Probably because Bucky had always been over protective so after the car crash it had been more of the same, just more often. Kind of like the media thing now, except Bucky was only one person instead of millions. “It isn’t that bad, really, just a lot of telling him things are fine and reminding him that I am my own person and therefore I can make my own choices, even if he doesn’t agree with them. And yes, I do actually care about Tony and yes, I am planning on sticking around for more than five minutes so I would very much appreciate the support,” he says.

Natasha nods seriously, obviously taking mental notes on the conversation so that, presumably, she can tell everyone to shut up. Hopefully Bucky would listen to her because he was actually irritated with Bucky’s ranting, but any attempts to tell him that have thus far fallen flat. Nat had sort of established herself as the equilibrium to his relationship with Bucky so perhaps her intervention would actually do him some good.

*

So Rhodey was skeptical but Tony seemed pretty damn sure and the only thing Tony had ever shown that much confidence in was his tech so he figured he’d give the guy a shot. Pepper still didn’t like him but that was at least partially because one Christine Everhart had become involved and Pepper loathed the woman and everything associated with her. That didn’t mean he wasn’t on high alert because the whole situation seemed way off to him. Aside from a brief investigation of the strangeness of Tony’s new relationship he did not plan to spend his whole vacation trying to rid Tony’s life of Steve the way Pepper seemed to want him to. Honestly he had better things to do and he trusted that, at least in this respect, Tony could take care of himself. There was no way he would open himself up to someone emotionally like that if he didn’t see something truly worth having. It wasn’t in his character.

JARVIS doesn’t bother to ask questions, the AI just lets him in so he drops his bag by the door so he can go find Tony. He finds him with, presumably, Steve in the living room, “okay but which Evil Dead? The original or the remake?” he asks.

“The original, duh,” Steve says, giving Tony a look.

“Good, because if you said the remake I’d have to disapprove of your relationship with Tony. Friends don’t let friends date people who like the remake of the Evil Dead,” he says and the two turn around. Tony abandons the DVD’s immediately and launches himself over the couch and into his arms. He manages to catch Tony and himself before they both hit the ground, barely, and looks over to Steve. This was always a good unintentional test because the significant others always seemed to have a problem with how close he and Tony were. Steve just looks amused though, shaking his head at Tony’s antics. Well, unintentional test one passed with flying colors. That and he didn’t like the remake of the Evil Dead, always a bonus.

“Glad you approve,” Steve says, “can’t say my friends are as accepting, but they also like the remake of the Evil Dead so clearly they aren’t quite right,” he jokes. They laugh and Tony detaches himself from Rhodey before walking back to the DVD’s.

“Anyone want pizza?” he asks, glancing back and forth between Steve and Rhodey.

Steve grins, “I was so hoping I’d see you conditioning yourself to eat to horror in action and I was not let down,” he says happily.

“You did this on purpose?” Tony asks, mock offended and hand pressed to his heart dramatically.

“Yeah, duh. When someone tells you they accidentally conditioned themselves to eat to horror it is basically your duty to see if it’s true. I also tried that ramen noodle concoction you mentioned, with the vodka and melon liquor and absolutely fucking not, never again. Do you love yourself? Because if you loved yourself you would have never eaten that. I gave the noodles to Clint and he thought it great until Phil caught wind of him eating radioactive alcohol with a noodle or two and talked some damn sense into him,” he says, shaking his head and looking generally confounded.

The two bicker back and forth and he’s content to sit back and watch. Within a half an hour he had decided two things. One, he liked Steve quite a bit and he didn’t simply ignore Rhodey’s presence like most other people would, more than once he tried to bring him in on the conversation. And two, it was abundantly clear that he and Tony had a lot of natural chemistry and not the kind a person could fake. He’s read the internet reviews since the poor bastard got shoved headfirst into Tony’s public life and it seemed that the general consensus was that Steve was a generally likable guy, at least if he liked you. If he didn’t he was apparently pretty nasty. Which lead to Option Two of the reviews; he was liberal trash that needed to be eradicated from Tony’s life immediately lest Tony realize people deserved basic human rights.

People had really latched onto that serial killer comment about Grant Ward but in his defense that was fucking hilarious and he had laughed for a solid ten minutes when he watched the video. Personally he wasn’t fond of the guy either and even though he was a bit confused as to how Steve came to that conclusion it was still funny so he let the lack of logic go. And fucking Rumlow, oh, Steve let that asshole have it good and entire groups of people were mobilizing around that speech.

He was impressed with Steve’s ability to keep up and he hoped the poor guy didn’t run out of steam because he was going to need it, Tony’s life was a fucking shit show in the best of days and Tony was head over heels, he did _not_ want to pick up the pieces from this relationship if it went south. He had been lucky enough that Tony hadn’t really shown much interest in romance until now so he had been spared from peeling Tony’s post-relationship ass off the ground. Something told him this relationship wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, at least not if Tony had anything to say about it. Pepper was going to be some pissed when he told her that he didn’t see much of a problem here.

*

Rhodey didn’t seem to share the same opinion of Steve as Pep but for all he knew that was only on the surface. Rhodey had perfected his poker face long ago, before his military days even, because being a part of Tony’s life wasn’t exactly a cakewalk. He had been dragged through the media a fair amount himself once he had gotten old enough that media outlets wouldn’t look like a bunch of fucking assholes for dragging children through the mud.

That didn’t mean he thought he was escaping some sort of judgement though because Pep was right to be skeptical of the idea that someone could possibly fall in love in less than a week. Rhodey doesn’t look ready to judge him though, but that could be because he was fond of sushi and he had a table full of it sitting in front of him. “Look, we both know that this lunch date is secretly both of us trying to figure out where the other stands with Steve,” Rhodey says eventually, not bothering to beat around the bush. God, Tony missed that. It was easy to get used to underhanded business deals that presented entirely in pretty little euphemisms to cover some really horrible shit and Rhodey was always a refreshing break from that.

“Alright, you go first,” he says, content to avoid talking about his feelings for the next forever.

He sighs but accepts his fate, “I think Pepper’s wrong, for one. He listens to you, _actually_ listens, he made an effort to include me in the conversation even when I didn’t bother to participate, and he didn’t look weirdly jealous when you practically vaulted your couch to hug me. You seem happy and I haven’t seen you happy in a long time. I like him, but that doesn’t mean I won’t kick his ass if he hurts you,” Rhodey says and Tony lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“Thank fucking god, I’m kind of getting annoyed of Pepper. I mean I know history has shown that I am embarrassingly bad at handling myself but Christ, I’m not a total moron, I know what I’m doing,” he says. Steve had been getting basically the same treatment from his friends minus Natasha, whom Tony decided he liked even if she did threaten to eviscerate him if he hurt Steve.

“I don’t know why she has such a hard time believing this story. You’ve always been all or nothing with everything you’ve done, and you always seem to find some weird ass way to make something that shouldn’t work work. This is just more of the same and Steve seems like a genuinely good person so I approve,” Rhodey says, stealing sushi off Tony’s plate.

“Get your own,” Tony says, waving Rhodey off his poor food, “and thanks. I appreciate that someone seems to realize that this is _exactly_ like me. And Steve’s great, really,” he says and then proceeds to go on a thirty minute rant about why Steve was the best. He was fairly certain that Rhodey was irritated by the end of it but he was a good friend and he put up with Tony’s crap.

*

After thirty minutes of fighting over who gets what Chinese they finally all seemed to come to the conclusion that they were all unhappy with the results. Phil was a good person for putting up with this, really, but he was the one who talked them all into cleaning Clint’s room and bribed them with Chinese so he had started it. So far they had found Bucky’s missing laptop, Peter’s missing laptop, a second StarkPad none of them even knew existed, several half empty boxes of pizza that were probably deadly, twenty three Tamagotchis, a rat, and four iPods. Plus all the trash and there was _so much_ trash. But Phil insisted that they help Clint out and Clint agreed because… well actually Steve was certain that Phil was using operant conditioning on Clint in an attempt to make him cleaner.

It was working in his defense. Unfortunately for Phil his conditioning wasn’t working so well on the rest of them because they all decided they wanted the same three things and Phil, ever the smart one, had ordered an array of things. It worked out well for Steve though because he got everything he wanted whether that was what was agreed upon or not. Normally he’d insist that Bucky keep his own food but he wanted that rice and Bucky offered to swap him for the noodles, which he decided he was not turning down. Sometimes Bucky’s insistence that Steve got whatever he wanted worked out nicely in his favor.

“Well, it’s half clean,” Phil says excitedly. He was the only one who was excited about that, the rest of them were traumatized by Clint’s mess. Bucky and Peter were pissed because they had been all but forced to use the public library for their computers for just over a year when all Clint had to do was clean his fucking room. They had assumed that the laptops went missing in one of many robberies, not that Clint’s room ate them.

“Good enough for me,” Clint says, reaching for the container that Phil was holding but Phil pulls it back, giving Clint a passive-aggressive smile that he usually saved for the people in the student accounts office. “What? It’s okay now,” he says and Phil squints a little, pulling the food back more. “Okay fine, I’ll clean the rest after I eat,” he says and Phil’s body language changes completely as he gives Clint a warm smile and the food. Clint perks up and all but shoves his face into the container.

“You think that conditioning is gunna work?” Bucky asks, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s already working,” Steve points out, “which I find hilarious, if ethically questionable. But it did lead to finding your laptop though so we should probably be pretty grateful,” he says.

Bucky looks so unimpressed that Steve has to laugh, “I can’t fucking believe that Barton’s room _ate_ my laptop. He owes me compensation for having to use the public library and sitting beside Stinky John to write assignments for the last fucking year,” he says, irritated. Natasha seems to find this amusing too and she snaps a picture of Bucky’s grumpy face for unknowable future purposes.

“I second Barton owing us compensation for library use!” Peter says, waving his chopsticks around and getting smacked by Gamora, who ended up with a vegetable down her shirt thanks to Peter’s overenthusiasm.

“It was an accident!” Clint insists and Phil picks up his plate, giving him that passive aggressive smile again. “Well is was!” he says, crossing his arms. Phil decides to break out the vegetables and hands the plate back to Clint. “Fine, so I should clean my room more,” he mumbles, earning some chicken for his efforts.

“That’s awesome. Think I could condition Nat?” Bucky asks, grinning.

“To do what?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at him.

“To not leave all your bobby pins everywhere, and to actually get your underwear _in_ the basket,” he says.

“Most guys would be happy to see my underwear lying around,” she points out.

“Yeah well you decided to date the ace, and your underwear isn’t even cute, take notes from Gamora and Peter, they have cute underwear,” he says. Well, Steve thought, he wasn’t wrong though he really could do without finding Peter’s brightly colored underwear around the house. Thankfully Phil conditioned Clint out of doing that in recent weeks.

“I like my underwear!” Natasha say, mock offended.

“That’s all that matters,” Bucky says, patting her arm and earning an eye roll. They bicker back and forth and Steve tunes out, more content to focus on his food or Phil conditioning Clint in some very obvious ways that Clint should probably be picking up on.

“Out of curiosity,” Steve says to Phil once Clint has been banished to his room to continue cleaning, “have you thought of the ethical problems with your current experiment?”

Phil gives him that passive aggressive smile, “have you seen the sink? _That_ is the real ethical problem here, and an actual health problem for you,” he says.

Steve sighs, “well, I guess that’s true.”

“You had Clint steal my toilet paper for a solid eight months before I finally figured him out,” Phil says and Steve didn’t really have anything to defend that aside from being broke as hell at the time.

“Yeah…” he says, trailing off slowly. It was hardly their fault that none of them had enough money for toilet paper and none of them were willing to settle for fucking one ply. They had standards and they were not sandpapering their assholes so stealing Phil’s toilet paper it was, he’s rich, he could buy more.

“I figure I’m helping everyone and my efforts are so obvious Clint will see through them quickly. Or at least I thought he would, he’s been surprisingly slow on the uptake. Still, at this rate I’ll have him regularly doing dishes by next week,” Phil says excitedly. Ethical issues or not Steve couldn’t deny that he would be grateful to Phil for life if he managed to get Clint to do dishes on any sort of regular basis.

“Honestly if you could get him to scrape his shit off his plates _before_ he starts growing eco systems in the sink I’ll take that. Remember when Bruce still lived here and he did an entire project on Clint’s sink eco systems?” he asks, shuddering at the memory.

“Yes I do, Bucky spent months whining about your health, which wasn’t worse than normal though that was actually sort of surprising. By the time you all finally had enough Clint was the only one who could go in the kitchen without feeling sick for hours afterwards. It did teach him a lesson for a while there, which was what gave me the idea to train him,” Phil says, smiling pleasantly in Clint’s direction.

“You think you’ve accidentally conditioned him not to care that he’s being conditioned? Because you really have been super obvious,” Steve says. There was _no way_ Clint hadn’t noticed; Phil had been pretty see-through right off the bat.

“I like to think he realized what I was doing right away and chose not to care because food, you know how much Clint loves food. Either that or he is very, very obtuse. In my experience Clint is very intelligent though, I think he went along with this for the food and the conditioning actually working ended up being a pleasant surprise for everyone Clint comes in contact with,” he says. Pleasant surprise was right, they found thousands of dollars’ worth of tech in his room and that was before they realized that terrible smell that seemed to permeate the general area of Clint’s room actually _was_ his room, not the structure of the place they lived in. That was pleasant at least because they could fix Clint’s stink but the structure? Not so much.

“Let’s hope it sticks, I’m hoping to find another StarkPad in there,” Steve says. For all they knew it could happen, they found twenty three god damn Tamagotchis, he was certain Clint could pull another StarkPad out of his ass.

*

“You found two laptops, four iPods, twenty three Tamagotchis, and a StarkPad?” Tony asks, looking surprised and confused.

“Yeah, and here we thought someone robbed the laptops but no, Clint’s room ate them,” he says, waving a fry around.

“Are the Tamagotchis alive?” Tony asks, totally having his priorities straight.

“Really? Clint insisted on feeding them all when he discovered they were, in fact, alive. Now he obsesses over them and I’m like eighty percent sure Phil is going to throw them all out,” he says. It had been difficult to get Clint to focus on the last portion of his room and when he finally got to the last bits they had all been happy that everything smelled fresh and clean. Clint was even nice and cleaned the kitchen for them, but that was probably because he left another eco system to grow and everyone else refused to touch it lest they die. That was an actual possibility in his case.

“No, that’s Tamagotchi abuse!” Tony says, weirdly invested in the lives of Tamagotchis.

“I’ve found them _everywhere_. Yesterday Nat woke up with one stuck to her back because she accidentally slept on it, I’ve stepped on three today alone, Bucky dropped one in the sink by accident and that one met its unfortunate end,” he says and Tony gasps softly yet dramatically. Steve couldn’t find the pity for the Tamagotchi after stepping on the third one that morning.

“Clint is a terrible Tamagotchi parent,” Tony says, sounding far more offended about that than he should.

“Clint is terrible at keeping clean. I mean I know we all have out issues, everyone gets mad at Nat and I for sticking our hairs on the shower wall instead of letting it go down the drain but cleaning a wall of hair is way less gross than pulling up a slimy hairball. Clint though, he takes ‘messy’ to a whole new level. If we didn’t love him we would have kicked him out forever ago because he is a genuinely terrible roommate. Think of all the worst roommates you’ve ever had and multiply it by ten and you _might_ have Clint,” he says. But they did love Clint so he stayed, even when they had to follow him around with trash bags and vacuums so the house remained clean.

“Oh I totally noticed the hair thing, nasty man. I have maids, it’s cool to let it go down the drain, they get nice monthly bonuses for cleaning my sheets. I mean you’ve been in my sheets, you know they deserve the extra money for being so gracious. But they can handle the hair, please leave it off the wall,” Tony says. Well, at least he didn’t pull the ever annoying ‘it’s their job’ comment and seemed to recognize that cleaning up after him was a pretty gross job.

“I don’t know why everyone thinks that’s so gross; I mean I have been in your sheets, the things that happen there are far worse than hair walls. And you leave beard hair in the sink! Way more gross, Bucky does that and it sticks to the toothpaste, it’s just not right,” he says, wrinkling his nose. And the shower wall hair was gross to him, as if he had a right to talk. And Clint has forever lost his right to complain about anything being dirty ever after the disaster that was cleaning his room. Phil took them all out for ice cream for their efforts too, and bought them two ply toilet paper. Cheaper or not one ply was for the truly desperate and they had never reached that level of financial disparity.

“Okay the beard hair is a necessary evil. And I try and wash it down the sink a little; it sure as hell doesn’t stick to toothpaste, that’s fucking gross. Tell Bucky to clean the sink when he’s done with his teeth. Who does that?” he asks, squinting.

“People who don’t have maids to clean up their toothpaste,” he points out, “beard hairs in the sink are still gross. Ask your maids,” he says, grinning.

“I’m pretty sure after they see the sheets, or my office for that matter, they’re probably happy to see the hair,” Tony says, making a face. Yeah, okay, so he probably had a point.

“Gold digger!” someone yells.

Tony winces but Steve turns to face the general direction the comment came from and yells, “it’s not my dream job but someone’s gotta do it!” without missing a beat.

For a moment Tony looks shocked and then he starts laughing, “oh my god where did you even get that?” he asks, clearly not offended. Great, because that was like the third time he had responded with that.

“It just came to me; personally I’m just happy you aren’t offended. I mean I did imply that I _am_ actually using you for your money and that you’re a job, I’d be a little put off by that,” he says. He didn’t mean it that way of course, but Tony probably wasn’t a stranger to people using him for his money and he didn’t want to stir up any unpleasant feelings.

Tony shrugs, “nah. It was pretty clear that was sarcastic,” he says, linking their fingers together, “plus that was fucking hilarious. I hope you aren’t put off by that though,” he says, trying and failing to hide his worry.

He shrugs, “I’ve had people who mean more say worse. This morning Nat called my a fall down fuck in the ass and quickly followed it with cum stained gym sock because I used the last earl grey vanilla tea bag and she wanted it,” he says. But she got the last of those frozen dinner things that they were all addicted to, which Peter was upset about but he was too scared of Nat to insult her.

“Man, you guys are really creative with the insults. Usually I stick to asshole but alright, cum stained gym sock, that’s uh, weird. But creative so ok. Seriously though, those comments don’t bother you do they?” he asks, his fingers growing just a bit tighter around Steve’s.

“No Tony, they don’t. Well, they don’t bother me because they’re about me, but I am a little annoyed that people seem to think they have any right to be so invested in your life that they try to shape it. They don’t know you, or anything but what they read about you, which is all skewed anyways. What business do they have acting like you’ve personally victimized them by dating someone who isn’t them?” he asks, “doesn’t _that_ bother you?” It would bug him, people feeling like they had a right to dictate his life like that. It could be argued that that was happening now but people didn’t care about him, not really, they cared about Tony and they wanted Steve gone so they could go on living vicariously through Tony and that wasn’t fair.

Whatever anxieties Tony had seemed to ebb away as he relaxed a little, “god you really are too good for me, you know that? People are yelling insults at you on the street and it’s _my_ wellbeing you’re worried about, I have no clue how I got so lucky,” Tony says, smiling at him like he was the best thing in the world. He ducks his head, his cheeks turning just a little pink and smiles.

“Well, people are only upset with me because I’m present in _your_ life. If I went away my sudden fame would too, you don’t get that privilege,” he says. And was it ever a privilege not to be famous, god. He had anticipated people being assholes but some of the things people said were just cruel or outright threatening. He had no idea how a person could possibly feel so connected to a celebrity they had never even had a conversation with that they would yell abuse at someone who had. Personally he was under the impression that if they really cared than they would be happy for Tony but no, quite a bit of people were outright cruel. Though this morning he did have someone ask for his autograph, which was too fucking bizarre to dwell on.

“I’ve been in this situation my whole life; honestly I don’t know how to live without it or what my life would look like without the fame. But I see your point regardless, and I still think it’s sweet that you worry about me when you probably should be worrying more about you. Anyways I have better things to do than talk about stupid people being stupid though. You have some time off school soon right? A reading break?” he asks. He hadn’t considered that Tony actually hadn’t lived a life without cameras being shoved up his nose every five minutes but yeah, he supposed he hadn’t. He wondered if Tony ever wanted out of that or if he enjoyed it as much as he claimed he did.

“I do have a reading break coming up, yeah, the week after next. Why?” he asks.

“Want to go to Italy?” he asks offhand, like that was a totally normal thing to ask.

“I… that’s a bit expensive,” he says slowly. He didn’t want to give the impression that he really was only around for the perks of being with Tony, he didn’t know how far Tony’s insecurities ran and it would be terrible if he accidentally triggered them.

Tony pulls away just a bit; “is that a no?” he asks and shit. Of course he’d accidentally hit a nerve trying to avoid hitting nerves.

“Hey, I didn’t mean it like that. I just don’t want you to give me all these cool presents and trips and stuff and wake up one day and come to the conclusion that’s the only reason I’m with you because it isn’t. Plus there’s no way I could afford that on my own so it isn’t like I could feasibly compromise money-wise,” he says. He hoped that was a good explanation because he really didn’t want Tony to think he was only around for the perks.

“Oh. I see what you’re saying but I don’t think that, like at all, and neither does Rhodey and lets be real he’s hands down the most sensible and the better judge of character out of the two of us. Normally I’d trust Pepper too but she didn’t even give you a chance so clearly I’m right,” Tony says though Steve was certain Tony would have found a way to be right anyways. “So want to go to Italy with me? Don’t worry about the money, I’m rich, it wouldn’t even make sense that you pay for yourself, it’s weird enough that you insist you pay for your own food,” he says. Yeah, well it made him feel better and less slimy. He didn’t want Tony for his money and he really _really_ didn’t want it to come off that way.

He considers the options for a few moments, “alright,” he says slowly, still uncomfortable with the idea but Tony didn’t seem to be and it was his feelings that he was trying to avoid messing with. He figured he should take his cues from Tony.


	7. Chapter 7

“You’re going to _Italy_ ,” Bucky says for the fifth time, looking flabbergasted.

“Yes Bucky, I am going to Italy, we’ve covered this five times now so if you have some other worry please voice it instead of repeating yourself like a broken record, please,” he says calmly and patiently. He already knew the million and one things that Bucky was going to say, his health being at the top of the list, but allergy season has passed and it wasn’t cold enough for pneumonia so he was probably going to be fine.

“Stevie that’s really far away,” he says quietly and that wasn’t what he was expecting at all.

“It’s only for a week, Buck, I’ll be back pretty soon,” he says.

Bucky wilts though, “I don’t think I’ve been away from you for that long ever,” he murmurs, looking down.

That was probably the sweetest thing he had ever heard, and it was true actually. They had followed each other everywhere once they had met as children, even to college. Steve was always the one to decide where they went though, he was the one that was in charge, always had been and Bucky always made sure he could follow. He pulls Bucky in for a hug because now he needed one too since he hadn’t thought of that. The longest they had been apart was… well when he went to Malibu actually, which suddenly explained Bucky’s intense dislike for Tony. “I’m not going anywhere Bucky,” he says softly, holding him tight.

“You are so. Tony showed up and now you’re doing all of these cool things and you’re leaving me behind,” he mumbles.

“I am not, well, I am doing cool things but that doesn’t mean I’m leaving you behind. This isn’t an either/or situation Bucky, my love isn’t a zero-sum. And besides, you have Nat,” he points out, “she loves you too you know.” And she was good with him, very good with him. He had been skeptical at first because not once had any of Bucky’s girlfriends ever understood his relationship with Steve, they always claimed that he was in love with him. Which, he supposed, wasn’t totally false but it wasn’t romantic love and it had always irritated him that they didn’t see that. Natasha had been very accommodating though and she never complained when Bucky preferred to spend time with Steve over her, or sought out his comfort before hers, or any other unique aspect of their relationship. She accepted that it just _was_ and worked with it. They had ended up very good friends that way, actually.

“Nat always blue shells me in Mario,” Bucky mumbles.

“So do I,” Steve says.

“It’s different, you blue shell me out of love, Nat just wants to blow me up,” he says,

Steve snorts, “there is no love in Mario, only murder, and when I blue shell you it’s because I’m fucking in it to win it,” he says. Bucky remains quite for a moment before they both burst out laughing.

*

Tony was off doing things with Rhodey, which he felt inexplicably bad about until Steve mentioned he had other plans anyways and he didn’t expect to spend like every waking moment with Tony. Truthfully they would probably get irritated with each other if that happened, some days Steve got annoyed of Bucky let alone anyone else he spent a lot of time with. He didn’t know how he managed to be talked into archery though, given that he had no real interest in the subject. He figured if nothing else he could watch Nat and Clint get weirdly competitive and draw for entertainment though, and hopefully doing that would prevent Bucky hovering.

He didn’t have any such luck with Bucky, but he did get to see Nat and Clint do increasingly more difficult things with their archery equipment until Clint eventually won because he was the better marksman, at least with that weapon. Natasha was more flexible though, which had led to some interesting shooting positions that Clint had struggled to reproduce. “I’m half surprised they didn’t manage to shoot each other with all those weird positions,” Steve says.

“I’m surprised they didn’t manage to shoot _us_ ,” Bucky says.

“We’re on the opposite end of the room from the targets, Buck, I’m sure they’re both talented enough to not kill us,” he says. Each other though, that was currently up for debate.

“Clint tried to shoot an arrow with his feet because Nat somehow managed to shoot an arrow with her feet. If Phil saw this he’d shit,” Bucky says. Oh yes, Phil Coulson would not be fucking impressed that his idiot boyfriend decided to shoot arrows with his feet because his best friend did it, so clearly he should be capable. Steve wondered if he was going to try conditioning that out of Clint too. So far Clint was like one hundred percent cleaner, though he was still somehow incredibly messy; he stopped leaving the toilet seat up but that was because he almost fell in when he went to take a shit, and he stopped leaving food in the sink. Ten out of ten, Steve would have Phil condition Clint again ethical problems or no.

“Yes he would, and then he’d do that thing where he’s yelling at you for doing something but he’s not actually raising his voice, he just looks really disappointed and that’s somehow worse,” Steve says. Thankfully he’s never actually been on the receiving end of that but he’s gotten second hand shame several times when Phil did it to other people.

“You noticed that too! I thought I was the only one who’d listen to Phil do the not-yelling-yelling thing and feel guilty for days about something I didn’t even do because he’s never done that to me,” Bucky says, looking like the world has just shown him new opportunities.

“Well I’m glad I’m not the only one who gets second hand shame. Like why am I losing sleep because Phil was mad at Peter for being… well for being Peter. Remember that one time he caught that rat and used it as a microphone? Do we still have the pictures?” he asks. That was simultaneously hilarious and terrifying because there was a rat in the house and rats fucking ate everything, but also Peter was using a _rat_ as a _microphone_.

“Oh my god yes, Clint was trying to catch a rat to recreate that scene for months afterwards, at least until Phil told him to stop that. At least the house rat was a fluke, that time we had roaches was bad enough. I definitely still have pictures though,” Bucky says.

He remembered Clint trying his best to catch a rat of his own to use as a microphone, and the hilariousness of Phil telling him that was a really dumb idea and to leave to poor rats alone. “Send me those pictures,” Steve says, “Tony has _got_ to see that. And at least the roaches weren’t fucking bed bugs, thank god we managed to dodge that bullet,” he says. Drax got bed bugs the year before last and the results were awful.

Bucky gives him a _look_ because their first year of their undergrad they lived in different houses and Bucky got bed bugs. Thankfully Steve managed to avoid them somehow, which was probably for the best because he was probably allergic to the stupid things. Bucky, however, still had nightmares about them. “I would have burned everything I owned and moved immediately, fuck it,” he mumbles, glaring at the wall opposite to them.

“What’re you glaring at?” Nat asks, wandering over weapon free thankfully.

“Steve brought up bed bugs,” Bucky mumbles, looking grumpy.

“Oh what would you do that for?” Natasha says in a scolding tone, gently rubbing Bucky’s head. Bucky grins at him and Steve shoves his shoulder.

“You asshole, don’t make me the bad guy, you brought up the roaches and I pointed out that they are better than bed bugs. If you wanted Nat to coddle you you should have just asked her to,” he says and Bucky snickers.

“Bucky you ass,” Natasha says, tugging his bun lightly, “be nice to Steve.”

Bucky smiles, “I was being nice to Steve, poking fun is a necessary part of being nice,” he says, gently pushing Steve’s shoulder back. He rolls his eyes but accepts Bucky being Bucky.

*

Tony was curious about the power of Natasha’s resting bitch face on people but he didn’t get a chance to see her in action until he and Steve coincidentally happened to text each other about lunch at the same time. Natasha had ended up tagging along, which he didn’t have much of a problem with if for no other reason than seeing exactly what kinds of super powers her face had. Personally he wondered how someone so beautiful could be perceived as so frightening. It wasn’t that he thought she couldn’t be frightening, he’s been on the receiving end of her threats; he knew she was scary when she wanted to be, but people tended to perceive pretty women as pretty before anything else.

He shows up just as Steve starts telling Natasha some story about someone yelling some insult at him for no real reason, or at least not what he would consider a reason. “Seriously, Nat, the guy used ‘slut’ as an insult. I mean if _that’s_ the worst he could do clearly I’m winning, which I told him and I don’t think he was very impressed. It isn’t my fault he thinks having a sex life is shame worthy though,” he says, brushing off the encounter almost completely.

“Are you alright?” he asks, drawing Steve and Natasha’s attention. Natasha, he notices, is watching closely but he pays more attention to Steve because he was the important one here.

Steve snorts, “Tone, he used ‘slut’ as an insult. No one with a brain goes up to a person and says ‘you regularly have pleasurable experiences, that makes you terrible’ in pretty much any other context. So yeah, I’m fine,” he says, clearly not at all bothered by the comment. He wondered how Steve did that, put up with the sudden fame. Rhodey had had a hell of a problem adjusting and by the time he got used to it the media had lost interest. Steve, on the other hand, seemed to have adjusted just fine to his new circumstances and he was afraid that one day he would wake up and realize he hated his life and he’d blame Tony for it. He’d be right, none of this would be happening if it wasn’t for Tony, and that’s what made him even more afraid.

“Are you sure?” he asks, sitting down beside Steve.

“Yeah, I’m okay with being a slut, I could be worse. I could be Brock Rumlow,” he says, looking unimpressed with that idea.

“He hates you now, by the way. Also the secretary at the front desk of SI loves you, I have no idea who she is outside of morning pleasantries but she felt compelled to tell me her life story this morning and that she was so happy someone finally called Rumlow out on his offensive and horrible politics. I gave her a raise,” he says. The poor woman had one sad backstory and she had been _so_ enthused that Steve tore strips off Rumlow. Of course not everyone was pleased about that, more than one person had made rude comments about Steve being a socialist and a liberal but Tony ignored them. There were worse things to be, he’d been most of them, and none of those people had felt the need to comment on that.

“Aww, that’s nice of her. And I’m happy to hear Rumlow hates me, it means I’m doing something right. I am glad that I anticipated the backlash I’d get for dating you correctly because if I had any sort of recognizable social media I’d probably be dealing with a lot of hate mail,” he says, “not that I would have read it.” That makes him feel worse but it wasn’t like he could control the way people reacted to the news that he was in a relationship. He was half happy he had never done this before; never felt the need to do this before, because people were fucking cruel for no reason. Unfortunately that meant that Steve ended up being the Guinea pig, which was unfair, but he was handling it well so far. He doesn’t really know what to say so he links his fingers through Steve’s and hopes that the message carries.

Natasha, he notices, it still watching him closely but the two take the conversation in a totally different direction and he’s happy to follow along. Eventually Steve ends up leaving him alone with Natasha, which he was positive was what she wanted if the look on her face was anything to go by, and he secretly hopes Steve didn’t take eighty years in the bathroom like Rhodey did.

“I had my doubts about you,” she says bluntly, “everyone doubted Steve’s feelings but I knew they were real, it was _you_ I had been worried about. I thought maybe you had some agenda and a guy like Steve could be useful if you used him right. I was wrong,” she says, tilting her head to the side and examining him like he was under a microscope.

“Um… good for you?” he says though it comes out more like a question than a statement. He had no clue what to say to that or even what that meant.

“You’ve never actually felt this way about someone, have you?” she asks.

“No, not that that’s really your business. Or anyone’s business contrary to popular belief,” he says, frowning. Dating had never really been on the agenda for him ever, he had never felt the need before, so he hadn’t realized how attached people were to his dating life. His sex life, sure, he knew plenty about how attached people were to that and he wasn’t always happy about it either. But dating? It was something he didn’t actually understand until he had met Steve because there was a million and one things that were more important to him than a relationship of all things.

“Hmm. I’m not much impressed with how invested people are with your dating life either, I worry about Steve. He seems to be handling things quite well though, not that I’m surprised; he’s always been very good with stress management. Ever heard of the term ‘aromantic’?” she asks.

At least he wasn’t the only one worried about Steve; he couldn’t help but feel like he was lying about not particularly caring about the backlash he was receiving for having the audacity to date Tony. Maybe that was because he would care that people hated him for existing in a relationship with someone, _did_ care that people hated him for existing in a relationship with someone. “Do you think he’s actually alright? He doesn’t seem like the type to admit to feeling hurt in any respect,” he says. He related to that more than he had a right to because he knew hiding his feelings did no one any good. “And no, I have no clue what an ‘aromantic’ is, nor do I see how it could be relevant, no offense,” he throws out there when he realizes he’s been sort of an ass.

Natasha shrugs, “no offense taken, my questions have been weirdly personal and I can see why you would be uncomfortable with them. Aromantic is someone who doesn’t experience romantic attraction. I wondered if you fell on that spectrum because you never really expressed an interest in dating, nor did you seem to understand everyone’s preoccupation with it. But that could be simply because people are incredibly invasive and feel they should have more of a say in your life than you. As for Steve, yes, he’s fine, if he wasn’t you’d know whether or not he told you because he isn’t as subtle as he likes to think he is,” she says.

He frowns because it had never occurred to him that people didn’t experience romantic attraction even if it should have in retrospect given that this is the only time he’s felt anything romantic for another person. “I assumed my lack of romantic feelings towards people was because they have a tendency to use me for sex, money, fame, or business but maybe not. I mean none of those things are particularly romantic in nature but like, never really felt the need to be in a romantic relationship given how fleeting and fragile they always seem to be. Friendships have always been more my thing and they seem to end in disaster less so clearly I made the right choice,” he says. The preoccupation with the romantic never did speak to him, he got far more enjoyment out of… anything that wasn’t dates. He found them painful and tedious when not with Steve.

“Most people don’t care how fleeting or fragile romantic relationships are, they still want one,” she points out.

“Well people are dumb, and I have no desire to be in a relationship that turns me into a crazy person who is weirdly obsessed with spending copious amounts of time with their significant other, neglects their friendships, and uses the royal ‘we’. I mean seriously, this is not Steve Universe; you do not _fuse_ with your significant other, stop referring to yourself as one person, that’s weird. Except for Steve, but he’s pretty different from the people I’m used to dealing with,” he says. Steve actually cared, and listened, and _remembered_ the things he talks about. More than once he’d been surprised that Steve remembered an offhand comment he had made days before, like his favorite color being red, or accidentally conditioning himself to eat to horror.

“You should look up grey-romantic, sounds like you,” she says, “and I agree on the royal ‘we’ thing. Why do people _do_ that? Don’t they find it weird? And when the other person doesn’t agree with what the first person has said, oh that is fun. Like yes, I look forward to watching the impending implosion of your relationship due lack of communication. That probably makes me a bad person but I can live with that,” she says and he snickers because yeah, he’s thought that too.

“I feel ya, and then they break up and wonder why. Gee, it was probably the royal ‘we’, there is reason the monarchy fell, take note. And the romantic thing doesn’t much matter to me, it will make exactly zero difference in how I live my life and I already know that I’ll never love anyone like I love Steve and that’s all that matters,” he says confidently. He didn’t much mind that either, even if the idea of breaking it off with Steve did make him feel a bit queasy. If this was all he got ever he was fine with that because Steve was more than enough.

“That is the sweetest thing I have ever heard, Tony,” Steve says, appearing behind him just as he says that. Of course he had to show up at the sappy moment instead of the funny monarchy fell moment. “Aww, don’t look so much like you’ve been caught with your hand in the cookie jar, that was cute,” Steve tells him, smiling happily.

“Who comes up with these stupid metaphors?” he mumbles more to himself than the others.

“Probably people who use the royal ‘we’ when talking for themselves and their significant other,” Natasha says.

“Ugh, I hate when people do that. This isn’t Steven Universe, you don’t fuse with your partner, calm the hell down,” Steve says, rolling his eyes.

“That’s exactly what I said!” Tony says happily, glad that someone agreed. He always knew if Rhodey’s relationships were headed south based off two things. One, they were jealous of his and Rhodey’s friendship, and two, the royal ‘we’. In combination those things ended in Imminent Relationship Destruction.

“If you two start sharing a brain I will have to stop endorsing this relationship to continue because the world cannot handle two Tony Starks or two Steve Rogers,” Natasha says. “Also I’m going to go beat that reporter in the bushes up before some absurd story about Tony cheating on you with me gets printed. Then Bucky will be mad he lost two people to Tony when he’s lost none,” she says, picking herself up to find said reporter. He’s never seen someone run so fast in the opposite direction before, and even better he dropped the camera he was holding. Nat goes to fetch it before sitting back down, “thought so,” she says casually.

“Told ya,” Steve says, looking smug.

“Shut up,” Tony says, wrinkling his nose.

“You owe me ten bucks,” Steve says, still looking smug that he was right.

“I’m taking you to Italy,” he counters, gaining a nod of acceptance from Steve.

“Asshole, I can’t believe you’re abandoning me in the hell hole that is our home,” Natasha says in a mock grudging tone.

“You’re welcome to come with all expenses paid,” he says, “I have like a million and one business meetings so I probably won’t be home much, I hope you don’t mind,” he says to Steve because he had neglected to mention that.

Both Natasha and Steve look flabbergasted though, “seriously?” they say in sync.

“Great, now you two are sharing a brain. Do I get a right to not endorse this?” he asks, squinting. Natasha and Steve don’t seem to be computing knowledge at the moment though, “you two still alive in there?” he asks.

“Hell yeah,” Natasha says at the same time Steve says, “no!” They share a look and a lesser man would run from the intensity of Natasha’s stare, “I am _not_ turning down a free trip to Italy! I will drop Bucky’s ass like a hot potato, this is way better than blue shelling him in Mario,” she says.

“You are not using my boyfriend for his money, Nat, that’s terrible!” Steve says, looking annoyed that she’d even consider it.

“Free. Trip. To. Italy. Once in a lifetime chance, I mean how many other billionaires are you going to date?” she asks.

“None, I’m content with the one I have now and not because of the money! No, this is _not_ happening,” Steve says. He looks far more uncomfortable with the idea than Tony was, it really wouldn’t cost him much, and it wasn’t like it was actually putting him out any.

“He has business meetings, you’ll need company,” Natasha reasons and earns a glare for her efforts.

“Which was why I offered,” Tony throws out there, hoping to calm Steve’s nerves a little. The poor guy looked frazzled over what Tony considered nothing but clearly Steve didn’t think the same. “Hey, remember when you were talking about… I don’t remember what country it was but that isn’t relevant. But when they handed out speeding tickets they ticketed people based on income. So like if I got pulled over my fine would be like two hundred thousand dollars, but someone who has a lower income would get a ticket for like fifty dollars. Basically it was designed to make sure that everyone followed the laws and not just poor people who couldn’t afford to pay their fines while rich people had no issue paying. Please tell me you remember that, I don’t even know why _I_ remember that,” he says, frowning. Not that it mattered because it was convenient now.

Steve looks suspicious, “yes, I remember that,” he says slowly. Natasha knows where he’s going with it too; he can see the realization on her face.

“Well generally people buy their significant others presents, right? So like if you spent ten dollars on me, that a lot to you, but a few thousand really isn’t much to me. Actually if you adjust for inflation you should be offended I didn’t spend more because this basically costs pennies to me,” he says. Natasha covers her mouth and snickers because Steve looked _so pissed_ that Tony managed to use that knowledge to his own advantage.

“Alright fine, I’ll go with this stupid logic, I’ve spent exactly zero dollars on you, how’s that fair?” he asks.

Tony frowns, “that’s because you don’t… have… money,” he says, confused on where Steve thought that comment made any sense at all. “It makes no sense to think that you should spend as much on me as I would on you when you have an income that… actually it isn’t even an income, I did the math. I get that you’re going for an equality approach here and I get that to you this might be a lot of money but to me it isn’t. Plus no one would put up this much of a fuss if they were truly using me for money. I have enough experience to know that for sure, its _fine_ ,” he says. Steve still looks deeply uncomfortable but he can’t really fight that logic and he knows it.

“I just… I feel bad because I have nothing to offer,” Steve says quietly.

“Okay, remember when you were ranting capitalism… well you do that a lot actually but still. This particular time you were talking about the idea that wage was directly tied to how much a person was worth. So like unpaid house work isn’t viewed as valuable at all even though it is a job, people do get hired to clean houses and hotels and care for kids, which is the same job but the wage _made_ it a job versus a duty? Well you’ve essentially just made the assumption that whatever you ‘offer’ me should take the form of some sort of material object or money to have value, which doesn’t make sense. Whether or not what you give me is tangible you’re giving me an experience I’ve never had before even with all the money and power I have and just because it takes the form of an abstract concept doesn’t mean it’s lesser,” he says. He didn’t think he’d be able to use of any of that information but apparently he was wrong.

Steve glares at the table looking somewhat helpless, “stop absorbing social justice I don’t like when you use it against me. I can’t fight it because you’re right,” he mumbles.

“Well duh, I am a genius,” he says proudly and gets the unexpected result of Steve flinging himself into his arms.

“God I love you,” he murmurs, holding Tony close.

“Yeah, I love you too, which is why I like buying you nice things. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside,” he says, holding onto Steve just as tight.

“Oh my god this is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!” Natasha says, pulling out her phone to take pictures.

“Ugh, Hammer tech,” Tony says, snatching the phone and tossing it, “remind me to get you a new and better phone. And by that I mean one I made,” he says, ignoring the surprised look on Natasha’s face as she watches her phone hit the ground. The thing busted too, totally shit, he could toss his off SI with minimal effects. Durability was needed but apparently Hammer’s phones were just as fragile as his ego and they were _definitely_ as hideous as his face.

“Tony, _no_ ,” Steve says, looking uncomfortable all over again.


	8. Chapter 8

Steve was convinced that Erskine loved him, not in a romantic way obviously, but he once mentioned he had a son that would have been Steve’s age if he hadn’t died in a tragic car crash and he couldn’t help but think Erskine saw a bit of his son in him. It didn’t help that the similarities between their lives did have a lot of parallels. Steve and his parents immigrated when he was young, his parents died young, he had been in a car crash himself around the same age Erskine’s son had been in a car crash, and both had been interested in history. There was a lot that was different too, like Steve’s father was abusive, Erskine’s son never had anyone like Bucky, he actually died in the crash he was in, Erskine obviously hadn’t died when his son was young. That didn’t seem to dampen his love for Steve though and it was sweet, really, that his mentor cared so much.

“So I hear you’re dating Tony Stark,” he says when Steve settles in his seat on the other side of Erskine’s desk. He looks like he disapproves and Steve was surprised he had brought it up, usually whatever feelings he had for Steve only came through in subtle ways. They had been working together for almost two years though, Steve was close to completing his thesis, and he figured Erskine had earned the right to care. He was fairly certain that time they got drunk and ranted about the stupidity of the history department meant they were sort of friends.

“I am,” he says, “though at this point you’d have to live under a rock to not know that.” He wasn’t pleased about his sudden rise to near infamy but the news was starting to die down just a little and Christine was set to release that stupid article that he had at least got to read before it was released tomorrow. It made him sound good at least, even if he didn’t much like that she had talked all about how good of a person was and then made the next paragraph about Bucky, making the subtle implication he was a good person for hanging out with the disabled guy. Bucky hadn’t been very happy about that either but he had assured him that that was not the case, he genuinely cared about him and loved him, and eventually he had calmed Bucky a little. He was certain Christine had a few other things up her sleeve too but he left that for Tony to deal with, he was the expert in this situation.

“Oh I am well aware; people have been asking _me_ questions about you. I haven’t said anything of course, that would be a blatant invasion of your privacy, though I couldn’t help but notice this seemed to have all started shortly after Tony’s visit here. Am I right to make that connection?” he asks, looking at Steve over the top of his glasses. He couldn’t help but feel like he was a child that was about to be scolded for being irresponsible.

“Well… I… yeah. You guessed right,” he says, not feeling like lying to Erskine over something so stupid. He’d never say anything anyways, even if he did disapprove and judging from the look on his face he _did_ disapprove.

Erskine continues to give him a hard look but eventually he seems to come to some conclusion that Steve doesn’t get to be privy to. “Hm. Stark better know he’s a lucky man. So, your thesis…”

*

“I told myself I wasn’t going to go look up that term Natasha had given me, aromantic or whatever, but after a five hour research binge I realized she was right. So of. I mean I think I’m romantically attracted to you but you’re the only person I’d ever be romantically attracted to ever, if that’s what this is,” he says confidently.

He moves his phone from one ear to the other and pins it to his ear with his shoulder. He was trying to find a specific blue pencil crayon but no, it remained elusive and missing. “There are like nine billion people on this planet, I can’t possibly be special enough to be the only one you’d ever be romantically attracted to,” he says logically. He couldn’t really see Tony with anyone else in a romantic sense but he was also blatantly biased.

“Oh I assure you that you are that special, no one would ever compare and I wouldn’t even bother looking,” Tony says with so much conviction Steve is actually surprised, and touched. He fights the urge to tell Tony that that couldn’t possibly be true because it would really only serve to imply that a romantic pairing was necessary for him to function and that was anything but true for anyone, but especially Tony. Plus the statement was born out of his own insecurities and Tony didn’t need his shit too, he had enough of his own.

“I… uh, I guess,” he says finally because he truly didn’t think he was all that special but he didn’t want to imply he knew more about Tony’s feelings than Tony himself did. He’s done that with Bucky before and it ended in disaster, something told him Tony wouldn’t be much different.

“You guess, but I know. I can tell you with one hundred percent accuracy that you are probably the only person I’d ever be interested in dating, there’s just something… different about you,” Tony says.

“That’s sweet, but I am utterly unremarkable in every way. It isn’t like I have an above average intelligence, I’m not particularly good looking, or exceptionally good any anything, by all means I am pretty forgettable. The only thing that makes me ever remotely noteworthy is dating you,” he says. It wasn’t meant to be self-depreciative, it was just true. He knew he was painfully average in every way except maybe his bad health and he was fine with that. Most people weren’t really special, that didn’t mean they were less important, they were still _people_ , they just didn’t stick out in some way. “You still there?” he asks when he realizes Tony has been silent for a bit too long.

“Do you really believe that?” he asks.

Steve sighs and sits up straighter, prepared for a Bucky-esk lecture on how great he was. “Yeah, and not because I have bad self-esteem issues or something. Not everyone can be billionaire, playboy, philanthropists or however that line or yours goes and I’m not one of those people. I’m fine with that, most people are in the same boat,” he says logically.

“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. That’s literally one of the most quoted things I’ve ever said and you don’t even remember the line, but I bet you can remember my favorite food,” he says.

“You don’t have a favorite food, it changes on a case-to-case basis because you find the notion of favorites limiting. There are millions of foods, and millions of ways to make and combine those foods, why limit yourself to just one food made in one way? Apparently that’s illogical to you. Except for red, it’s loud and obnoxious and impossible to ignore, just like you, so you love it. Also there is a finite amount of colors the human eye can see so favorite colors are less limiting,” he says. He wasn’t exactly sure what that was supposed to prove aside from having had a conversation with Tony.

“And that’s the difference between you and everyone else. People are content to listen to some bullshit I said when I was drunk one time because people think my excessive drinking is fun and quirky instead of an actual problem. But you? Instead of remembering some stupid quote I said when wasted you remember something that says something about my personality, not my public image, _me_ ,” Tony says. Steve understood what he meant, he was already becoming a media-created caricature and it was bizarre to watch all that made him him be deconstructed and broken down into like three bite-sized pieces so he was easily consumed by the public. He still didn’t think that proved much more than having had a conversation with Tony though and he told Tony so.

“Okay, fine. You don’t think that makes you different, alright. But you know what happens _every_ time I bring up Howard or Obadiah? _Every_ time people talk about how they must have had _such_ an influence on my work and how I run things and blah, blah. I mean a little less so with Obi now that he betrayed the country but still. People act like they’re some sort of like… heroic figures in my life, like I owe my success to them. You though? For the first time in my life someone told me that Obadiah meant nothing, and that my projects were my own, my accomplishments suddenly belonged to _me_ instead of some vague father figures that did more to ruin my life than create it. Do you know how revolutionary that was to me?” he asks, sounding almost hurt.

He barely even remembered that conversation, he had been far more caught up in the intimacy of standing in the middle of Tony’s lab, something not many people got to see. That had been his focus, and the comment about Obadiah was just true. “I… no I didn’t know it meant that much to you, I mean I’m glad it did, I just thought it was obvious,” he says.

“Exactly. To you the things that make me me are obvious, you see them _so_ easily and you don’t try and pass off my accomplishments to someone else. You think _I’m_ amazing, not my last name, not my money, hell, not even my tech, not really. When you look at me you actually see a person there, not five basic traits someone listed on paper one day as if those things were the whole of who I am. Even in my lab you saw that and whenever someone sees the things that I can do everything thinks the _tech_ is awesome, which it is, but they talk about it as if my tech and myself are like two different things. But you said _I_ was amazing. You didn’t try and separate my ability to create from the things I created as if those things exist independently. Just because ‘special’ is constructed in an extremely limiting way that by no means reflects the intricacy of humanity as a whole doesn’t mean you aren’t special, it means other people are too stupid to see it,” Tony says.

For a moment he had no idea what to say to that because half the things Tony mentioned were things he wasn’t even aware of, which he knew Tony would say furthered his point. But he still didn’t much believe that, even if Tony’s words were technically true. The things Tony mentioned were just… _obvious_ , he wasn’t special for noticing them, Tony’s expectations for people were just really _really_ low. “I know you’re dying to say something, Steve, spit it out,” Tony says.

“I… Just… Tony the fact that you’re excited that I treat you like a person, essentially, indicates you have some really low standards, not that I’m special or something. And what about Pepper and Rhodey? I’m sure they’re different to you too,” he says.

Tony sighs, “alright, fame comes at the cost of losing your humanity. People stop seeing you as a person and start seeing you as a character, they get emotionally attached to you like they would someone fictional, and in a lot of ways what people love _is_ fiction. It isn’t their fault, I mean every famous person can’t have a close emotional connection to every fan they have, that’s nuts, and of course fans get attached to someone who created something that means something to them. But, at least for me, it leaves me in a really weird position where people grow so attached to who I am to _them_ that they don’t see who I am to _me_. The fact that I’m excited that you’ve never done that to me isn’t low standards, its actual excitement. I mean I don’t blame people for the ways they view me but it is incredibly rare that someone takes the time to learn who I am outside of the narrow view of who they think I am. Even when you did make that mistake you listened to me and dropped your assumptions immediately. People _never_ do that,” he says.

So maybe he had a point, and he was well aware of how famous people were treated by the general public, how tabloids regularly dehumanized them. Made them spectacles, made stalking them and intruding on their lives seem like a normal and even logical thing to do, acted like having a right to people’s lives no matter the cost was necessary. He could see why Tony thought he was refreshing to the typical treatment he would have gotten. “And Pepper and Rhodey? They must be exceptions too,” he says because Tony hadn’t gotten to that.

“Sure,” Tony says, “Pepper was the first person to realize, wow, I actually know how to do business stuff and I’m way better at it than Obadiah ever was. People thought I took needless risks and Pepper was the first one to see that I was just saw business patterns they didn’t and she encouraged me to push back. She told me once that I shouldn’t let people hold me back just because I’m smarter than them, she changed my life. And Rhodey was the first person I had ever met that didn’t immediately start talking to me like we’d been best friends for life. When I finally got the nerve to ask what was with the silent treatment, seriously we had been roommates for three weeks at that point; he told me that it must be exhausting to have people constantly vying for my attention. He figured I would have wanted a little down time from all that. I mean he was wrong, that was the worst and most uncomfortable three weeks of my life, I can’t stand sitting in silence like that but he still considered my feelings before his. But what they did for me is different than what you have, there are similarities of course, but it’s different with you, it has been since the beginning,” he says.

He had no idea what to say to any of that because it was so clear that those things meant so much to Tony but to Steve they were just obvious things to do. Sure, maybe Tony thought those things made him different somehow but he didn’t, in fact he thought treating Tony like he was an actual person was a necessary thing not a revolutionary thing. “I… that’s how people _should_ treat you!” he blurts out because he had nothing better.

“Hmm. Okay what’s the term you use for that thing that like influences how people see you and treat you? Like all the aspects of your identity that give you a certain thing, something social,” Tony says and it clicks with Steve.

“Social location?” he asks, sure that that was the term Tony was looking for.

“Yeah, that. Because of my particular circumstances people stop treating me like a person. I mean it isn’t right, you’ve pointed that out, but that’s the life I live so yes, maybe that’s how people should treat me but that isn’t my reality. It’s nice when someone comes along and breaks that, and you’re special whether or not you want to believe it,” he says firmly. He was really regretting all those social justice rants to Tony because he was learning things and he needed to stop that. That wasn’t something he ever thought he would think but now Tony has learned to use his own knowledge against him in perfectly reasonable and logical ways and he didn’t know what to do with that.

“I… um. Okay,” he says finally because he had nothing else to say, Tony’s argument was air tight and the only thing he had against it was that he just didn’t think he was special at all.

“I like your fancy new terms, I find them useful,” Tony says cheerily and he rolls his eyes, laughing.

“For evil,” he says.

“If trying my best to convince you that you’re special makes me a super villain I will gladly accept my fate,” Tony says happily. Of course he would, the ass.

*

Steve sleeps far more soundly than he did but that was unsurprising. On any given week he only slept a few times and medication didn’t help any. Actually he sort of avoided medication in general, addictive personality and all, but the fact that it did nothing helped. He had woken up naturally the second the sky had gotten a bit lighter, any sort of light seemed to end any chance of him getting sleep, and he had forgotten to draw the curtains so he could have at least tried to get some extra sleep. Steve though, he continued to snort lightly beside Tony, curled up in the fetal position and looking utterly adorable.

He knew Steve had a lot of body image problems that he refused to acknowledge though Tony had no idea why. So Steve didn’t look like he stepped off a men’s magazine cover, frankly Tony was grateful because he sort of wondered if those guys were even healthy. Who wanted to look like they were one solid muscle with some anger issues? Personally the guys on the cover of women’s magazines with pies always seemed more appealing to him but that was probably because they were holding pies. Pastries were a weakness of his. Steve too, but for totally different reasons. He reaches over to brush some hair out of Steve’s face and he shifts a little in his sleep, moving closer to Tony. For a moment he thinks he woke Steve up but he blinks a few times, yawns, and curls up with his face buried in Tony’s chest.

If he hadn’t known before that pleasant warm feeling he got would have told him that yeah, he was definitely in love. He yawns, a side effect of not getting enough sleep, but he says in bed and closes his eyes anyways, content to stay with Steve a little longer. The morning was quiet and nice and he didn’t really want to deal with work right now anyways. It wasn’t until he woke up sometime later that he realized he had, against all odds, fallen asleep again.


	9. Chapter 9

Scott and Luis were bickering over the damn vagina mold again, arguing about what it meant. It was a god damn vagina, it was a political statement but no, they seemed to think it had some deeper meaning about motherhood or something. He doesn’t bother to point out how stupidly gendered that is because at some point one of them will clue in and guilt trip the other. They did make for good entertainment though, waving their hands around over this vagina mold and its supposed meaning. This was his last day before his trip to Italy, Bucky had been _pissed_ that Nat managed to weasel herself into going, but he had no argument for her logic of having _someone_ around to make sure Steve didn’t get himself killed in some back ally in Italy. He didn’t think it was an issue but Nat and Bucky disagreed, which made Bucky significantly less grumpy about being left behind. That and he had a giant assignment due at the end of the break so he didn’t really get a choice in whether or not he could leave the country. He was upset about that too, poor baby. Nat teased him relentlessly like the asshole she was.

His boss had been nice enough to give him a bonus a couple weeks early, too, which was greatly appreciated. Scott and Luis were jealous, probably because they hardly got a bonus let alone an early one, but he was the boss’s fav so.

“Would you two stop bickering about that vagina and do your jobs?” he asks, hands on his hips, “we have shit to do,” he points out.

“So glad at least one of you has earned your bonus,” his boss says, choosing to appear at a convenient time for him. Scott and Luis look properly shamed and they slink off to go do their duties, “thank you for keeping them on track, Steve,” she says.

“In all fairness they would have figured it out eventually,” he says, sort of defending them.

“I don’t have two centuries to wait around for that to happen. You keep them on task nicely though, I swear things have never gotten done so fast,” she says and walks off to go do her own thing.

“How did you get on her good side?” Scott asks, looking dumbfounded. Luis also looked properly impressed with his ability to be liked by their boss.

“No clue, I’m off task as much as you two are, she just shows up at convenient times that happen to make me looks good. Grow better luck?” he suggests, shrugging. He had no clue what to tell them aside from that, it wasn’t like this was something that he did on purpose. Not that he didn’t enjoy the results, he totally did, being the boss’s favorite had its perks, like an early bonus because he was taking a trip to Italy. Also the time off to go to Italy.

“Man I wish, you must have a horseshoe shoved up your ass because there is no way that you managed to land a relationship with the richest guy in the world _and_ gain the boss’s love without some help. Did you sell your soul?” Scott asks, squinting.

Steve rolls his eyes, “I didn’t sell my soul, guys, I just happened to be in the right place at the right times I guess,” he says. There was no real reason that his luck happened to be that good outside of simple chance. For all he knew Clint considered putting someone else’s number on that wall and he happened to change his mind last minute and put Steve’s there instead. Personally he would be curious to see how this would have ended if he had put Loki’s number there instead. He may not like Loki like… at all but he had a feeling Tony would have fun sassing with him.

“He sold his soul,” Luis says, “we should say a prayer-”

“Dear god, Luis, spare us _please_ ,” Scott says, trying to head off one of Luis’ long rants ahead of time. Instead he successfully rerouted Luis back to the vagina mold again, sparking yet another debate about its meaning. Points to Luis for being the first to notice the stupidly gendered argument about motherhood, though. Steve manages to talk them back into doing their job, once again looking good for the boss as she reappeared in the middle of him telling them to stop whining about vagina molds and his soul supposedly being sold and get moving the art around.

*

Tony comes to pick him up at work, which of course draws attention but they both ignore it and climb into the back of the town car Happy drove Tony around in. Natasha is already there looking properly ready to travel in an oversized hoodie and yoga pants. “Did you know we were taking a private jet?” she asks, clearly pleased with this development.

“What? You _have_ one of those?” he asks, unable to keep the shock off his face as he faces Tony.

“Duh, I travel in style,” he says, grinning at Steve happily.

“How rich _are_ you?” he asks and for a second Tony looks confused.

“You haven’t looked up my net worth?” he asks, surprised.

“No, what use would I have for that information?” he asks logically. Even now that information was useless; it wasn’t like Tony’s wealth was now his, that wasn’t how things worked. Frankly he didn’t have much of an interest until now because seriously, how much money did Tony have if he could afford upkeep on a jet _plus_ all the cars, homes, and various other things he had?

Tony frowns, clearly stumped by this revelation, “my net worth is ten billion, and SI is worth double that,” he says. For a moment his brain just stops working because he couldn’t comprehend that many zeroes on one bank account. “You okay?” Tony asks after a moment.

“That’s _so many_ zeroes,” he says, struggling to comprehend that much money, “no wonder people think I’m with you for the money. I mean I’m not but _Jesus Christ_ that a lot.”

“I’m a billionaire, I’m sure you knew that,” Tony says, not any less confused than he had been before.

“Yeah, but I thought you had, like, one billion not ten. That’s so many billions what the hell do you _do_ with that much money?” he asks, unable to understand _how_ a person could possibly have that much wealth let alone what to do with it.

Tony grins, “whatever the hell I want,” he says and he and Natasha share a knowing look.

“What’s that look for?” he asks, looking between the two of them. He wanted to know what was up _immediately_ because Tony had a tendency to go overboard and Natasha would only encourage him.

“Oh nothing,” Natasha says, smiling like she knew something he didn’t but he doesn’t get a chance to ask before she changes the subject to Bucky. There was, of course, a lot to talk about there because he had been considerably anxious the last few days so they worked out strategies to deal with that while Tony fielded phone calls from… whomever. It didn’t look like much fun to Steve anyways, though he supposed dealing with Bucky’s anxiety wasn’t much fun either, especially for Bucky.

*

“So how was Bucky, before you left?” he asks. Tony and Rhodey were sitting elsewhere and bonding and Steve was happy to leave them to it. Rhodey, from what he understood, didn’t get much time off so he didn’t want to cut into their time together. Plus if he had a general idea of Bucky’s mental state it made easing his anxieties easier rather than taking a guess and ending up making things worse by accident.

“Considering? He was fine, but you know how he is, I’ll bet he’s freaking out now but there isn’t much we can do until we land. Then we can reassure him that we aren’t dead, send some photo proof, and hopefully he’ll get some sleep,” she says. Yeah, Bucky didn’t sleep well anxious, or at all. He hoped that Bucky didn’t have a bad week without him or Nat there to help out. Phil was the only other person who was capable of quelling Bucky’s anxieties and he had a twenty page paper due right after the break so he was working on that.

“Hmm. Well I guess we’ll deal with it when we land. What stupid trinket should we get Bucky to annoy him?” he asks. His top vote was a keychain but Nat was dead set on a postcard. Bucky loathed normative travel trinkets and whenever someone got the opportunity to travel they always picked up something lame for Bucky. He kept the trinkets too, in a little box of hate under his bed because as much as he hated generic travel presents he did love his friends. They bicker back and forth over that while Tony and Rhodey bicker about, or all things, sky diving. Rhodey seemed content to not jump out of planes and Tony was all for it, which was hardly surprising.

He and Nat lapse into silence and at some point he must nod off because he wakes up briefly when a blanket is draped over him. “Shh. Go back to sleep,” Tony says, brushing his hair aside and kissing his forehead. He can’t help the goofy smile that crosses his face, especially when he notices that Natasha is also covered with a blanket. He mumbles some sure to be unintelligible reply and passes out again, tired from a long day at work.

*

Natasha’s morning face was, to the average person, frightening but that was only because she had natural bitch face. It was hardly her fault she looked like she’d cut a person’s throat if they dared breathe in her direction. She was actually something of a morning person though, which was probably one of the only things that caused relationship problems with her and Bucky because he was not a morning person. Hell, even when he woke up around noon he was not an afternoon person either. Bucky functioned the best at night and Natasha, well, she could function whenever but she preferred to function at normative human operating hours. They were both light sleepers too, which meant whenever the other got in and out of bed they woke the other up and they were both the snarly type when woken up.

Thankfully by the time Natasha had been rudely woken from her slumber she had gotten enough sleep because she didn’t bite anyone’s heads off. Tony and Rhodey looked leery though, probably because of the bitch face, and they kept their distance until Steve deemed it safe by starting a conversation. Then Natasha seemed to brighten some, which didn’t do much to dispel her danger level because Rhodey and Tony still looked put off. He supposed if he watched someone go from looking like they were going to bite someone’s head off to generally happy he might be a bit confused too. Hell, Pepper Potts doing that was nothing short of terrifying.

“I’m going to sleep for the next fifty years,” Natasha says, rubbing her eyes tiredly.

“After we remind Bucky we haven’t died,” Steve says, also dead tired. Travelling and him had never gotten along, especially if there was a time zone shift, but this was the first time he had jumped entire countries that were hours ahead of him. He could practically feel the jet leg already and he only just woke up. Rhodey and Tony, however, looked perfectly awake and alert because they’re assholes who were probably used to this.

“I already did that,” Natasha says, “and I didn’t even need photo evidence. He’s busy with that paper he has to do though.” Steve wrinkles his nose because ugh. Thankfully all of his assignments minus one had been due _before_ the break, which meant that his book load had been considerably light, at least compared to what it could have been. He had purposely gathered a number of online sources for that because he didn’t want to carry forty books around to do a damn assignment. Natasha, the lucky asshole, didn’t have any assignments due at all. She and Peter, who was also assignment-less, were happy to rub it in everyone’s faces. Clint had procrastinated on all of his papers so now he had a giant mound of books in his room that Phil had been kind enough to filter through and sort so he could start. He was somewhat upset he didn’t get to see Clint’s scrambling because it was always amusing to watch him sleep on his books, wake up, write an entire paper, pass out for a few hours, and repeat.

“Oh. That’s weird, hopefully he isn’t sick or something,” he says. Bucky generally wasn’t so easy to appease but it was entirely possible that he was more stressed about his paper than him and Natasha travelling. He highly doubted that but it was possible.

“He isn’t sick, Steve, just stressed about that paper. I mean he was dumb enough to do cultural studies,” she points out.

“What exactly would that entail?” Tony asks, apparently choosing now to tune into their conversation.

“Bucky describes it as ‘nothing is real, art is a lie’ followed by a series of existential crisis’. And distain over reading yet another thing Michel Foucault wrote,” Steve says. He’s read Foucault, he understands Bucky’s pain, sort of, Bucky had to read a lot more Foucault than he ever has the sorry soul.

“Wow. That sounds horrible, not gunna lie. Never did understand the whole ‘humanities are easier than sciences’ thing though, I tried to read a few things from authors you’ve mentioned a few times and honestly I didn’t understand any of it. Engineering? I could do that all day every day without a problem, social justice? After like six hours of research and reading I came to the conclusion that I know nothing about anything _except_ engineering. So yeah, humanities are not easy,” Tony says. Steve was touched, actually, that Tony had gone so far as to read things from authors he’s talked about, more so that Tony was willing to admit he didn’t know something. He was not the type to admit to being clueless.

“You read stuff that I recommended?” Steve asks happily.

“Well yeah, you spend so much time and effort on this stuff that I figured maybe I should read stuff to keep up,” he says and that was probably the sweetest thing he had ever heard.

“I feel like such an ass,” he says because it was hardly like he looked up anything Tony wrote, mostly because he wouldn’t understand a word of it. Actually from what he understood _no one_ understood any of it because it was far beyond what anyone else was currently capable of.

Tony frowns, “why?” he asks and Steve can practically _see_ Tony trying to figure out what he had done wrong and that was just heartbreaking.

“Nothing you did,” he says before Tony gets any more ideas, “but I have no fucking clue what you’re talking like ninety percent of the time when you talk about the stuff you’re interested in. I mean you put in an effort and I’d be hopeless to even try. You might think you have no understanding of social justice but you seem to pick up on the concepts just fine, it’s the lived experience you lack,” he points out. Steve didn’t have the experience or the intelligence to understand what Tony did on a regular basis.

Tony squints, “you… clearly have a great working knowledge of engineering because you always ask really good questions,” he says, frowning.

Natasha bursts out laughing, “Steve doesn’t shit about tech, we used to have an entire YouTube channel called ‘Steve vs Technology’ in which the technology mostly won,” she says, clearly assuming Tony was joking. “Oh, you’re serious,” she says after a moment, looking shocked, “how the hell did you manage to bullshit so hard you managed to fool the world’s _leading engineer_ into thinking you actually knew stuff about tech?” she asks.

“I’m really good at bullshitting?” he tries, shrugging. The hell if he knew, he just asked how stuff worked, he thought his questions were stupid and made no sense, he had no knowledge of his supposedly good questions.

“Alright, to be fair I have a degree in advanced engineering and I have no fucking clue what Tony’s saying half the time. Actually at this point Tony is so far ahead of everyone else instead of interacting with other theorists and stuff in his field all the academia he’s had published basically features Tony talking to himself and correcting his own theories as he figures things out,” Rhodey says, “so I mean you aren’t alone in that, the whole world is with you.”

“Yeah so like instead of circle jerking with a bunch of other people in my field like you complain academics do now I like… masturbate,” Tony says and Natasha snorts, remains silent for a second, and then bursts out laughing.

Rhodey sighs and looks off out the window, “I could have gone my whole life without that analogy,” he says, shaking his head.

“The good news is you don’t have to!” Tony says cheerily. Rhodey gives him a look but Tony is already happily absorbed in whatever is on his phone screen.

*

“I maintain that that toaster was possessed by the fucking devil,” he says because it was, Satan himself lived inside that piece of junk and reared his ugly head every time Steve tried to use the damn thing.

Tony was laughing so hard he wasn’t breathing right, “you… you jumped so high,” he squeaks out. God, Natasha should have kept her asshole mouth shut about that channel of videos in which he tried desperately to figure out technology.

“Possessed toaster,” he says and Tony wheezes harder. Even god damn Rhodey was laughing at him, hell, even _Nat_ was laughing and she’s seen all the videos, she filmed half of them. “Okay you know what, laugh all you want I was basically raised by a bunch of Catholic luddites, I thought I adjusted well,” he says. Tony manages to breathe in a huge gust of air and then lets out a laugh that makes him sound like a fucking jackal, which only encourages Nat and Rhodey to laugh harder. “You guys are assholes,” he tells them and looks out the window. He had no clue where he was but it was pretty so he figured at least he was getting something out of this considering one of his best friends betrayed him and his boyfriend and his friend were happy to continue the trend.

“You looked so frightened,” Tony says when he finally regains control over himself.

“The toast practically threw itself at me, it was traumatizing!” he says and this sends them all back into fits of laughter. He sticks his nose in the air and ignores them for the rest of the ride, even when Nat directs them to what she considered the funniest videos. Given his up brining he thought he did just fine, other than the satanic toaster, he never did manage to get ahold of how to use the damn thing without it flinging toast at his face.

Thankfully they hadn’t had much longer to travel and Steve could already feel himself drooping back to sleep out of exhaustion. Natasha probably took like fifty pictures because she was secretly the spawn of Satan and that toaster was probably related to her. When they finally reach their destination Steve is glad to stretch himself out and his poor bones pop back into their proper places. Rhodey looks horrified, which makes him laugh.

Natasha snorts, “oh my god. Conspiracy theories around yours and Tony’s relationship have finally started and the leading theory is that you’re a sex robot,” she says, “Bucky’s fucking pissing himself laughing because that means that Tony is essentially having sex with his kid.” Well, that was better than wanting to fight the whole internet because he would probably actually try.

“I wish, sex robots don’t have to write a thesis,” he says. After two years of American History and being a TA in various other classes he was ready to fling himself into the sun. Also he had no clue what he was doing with his life; how he got this far he had no clue. To be fair all of his friends were winging it too, Natasha had a B.A in science and dance or all things. She couldn’t even _do_ science but she had a science degree. To be fair he somehow went from art to history. Maybe he should learn stuff about art history, combine the two, that’ll like… do stuff.

“Yeah, I remember those days. I have like seven PhDs, such a pain in the ass to get one,” Tony says like that even compared.

“Who _needs_ that many PhDs?” Steve asks, squinting.

“Some who wants bragging rights,” Rhodey says and Tony doesn’t even look guilty, the asshole.

“Totally want a PhD for bragging rights, that sounds awesome. I also have a degree in dance and archeology, it’ll confuse people,” Nat says.

“I think you’ve already successfully confused people. How the hell did _that_ happen?” Tony asks.

“My surrogate asshole of a father wanted me to be a ballerina, I wanted to be anything but that so we compromised and then he died in a plane crash so now I work in a museum and do school part time. I figure if I ever want to honor Ivan’s memory I’ll become a stripper and use my dance knowledge for pole dancing, it’s a freakish amount of work,” she says. She’s even taken a few pole dancing lessons though Gamora was significantly more talented, and Clint blew them both out of the water but he grew up in the circus. Apparently the knowledge was transferable. He had some weird friends now that he thought about it. And he had yet to see Clint’s supposed talent, which was a damn shame because he was curious as to how the hell _Clint_ managed to pole dance well. It just didn’t match up with his personality.

Tony nods, “I had a stripper try and teach me once, she was very nice about my total lack of skill and finesse and she didn’t even laugh when I fell on my head even though it had to have been hilarious. I have an appreciation for anyone who manages to not die on those things,” he says. That came as a surprise to literally no one, it was so _Tony_ to try and learn stripper moves and fall on his head.

“As you should,” Natasha says and walks away while looking at her phone. Bucky was texting her, presumably, and Steve probably had at least five texts on his own phone from Bucky alone.

“You look tired,” Tony comments, wrapping his arm around Steve’s waist and pulling him close.

“That’s because I am, travelling zaps my energy,” he says. It used to be a pain in the ass to travel across New York and stay awake but he is a very stubborn person and his stupid body wasn’t about to quit on him when he needed it so he had eventually gotten used to it. As if he was going to let his fragile body rule his life, it could suck it the hell up, he had things to do and his body damn well better get with the program.

“Then go sleep it off. I have stuff to do anyways and I’m sure Natasha will do enough exploring to fill you in,” Tony says, pressing a kiss to Steve’s temple. He didn’t need to be told twice, he was dead tired and even though he probably could keep himself awake he figured he probably shouldn’t press his luck so much. So far his body had been cooperative; he didn’t want to ruin it now.


	10. Chapter 10

Steve wakes up to his phone going off at what was probably ass o’clock in the morning though when he looks it’s actually eight, which means its ass o’clock in the morning to whomever is calling him. He groans and stretches himself out; resigning himself to waking up so he can field whatever Bucky’s problem may be so the poor guy could sleep some. He could use more sleep but he figured he had passed out for long enough and from the looks of the bed Tony hadn’t slept there so he either slept on the couch or wherever his work space may be here.

Picking up the StarkPad he finagled Bucky into letting him bring he answers the call without checking who it was. “What’s up, Bucky? He mumbles, rubbing his eyes and blinking rapidly to try and wake himself up faster.

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me?” two people yell at once and he blinks faster, focusing on the screen to find Peggy and Sam glaring at him, not Bucky.

“No?” he asks, frowning and unsure of why they looked so pissed off at him.

“You’re _seriously_ dating Tony Stark? I thought this was like some bad fucking joke or something but no, explain yourself,” Peggy snaps and wow okay. That was not what he expected whatsoever.

“Uh, I happened to run into the guy and actually enjoyed his company? Look, I don’t know what explanation you’re expecting but from the looks on your faces I don’t think you’re actually looking for me to explain things. You just want to yell at me and I think I should at least know _why_ ,” he says. Oh, he could guess why, but he wanted to hear it straight from their mouths before he reamed them for it.

Sam’s eyebrows lift, “you want to know _why_? You aren’t an idiot Steve, after all the work we’ve done together, all those times we talked about how Tony Stark was the literal devil you go and _date_ the guy?” he snaps, clearly not understanding. “You hate Tony Stark! You think he’s a misogynistic fuckbag! Now you’re falling into bed with him? I’m sure you can see why we’re pissed,” he says.

Actually he couldn’t, he was free to live his life as he pleased regardless of what they thought of it. If they had’ve called and asked nicely he might have explained some but now he was annoyed that either Sam or Peggy thought they had a right to dictate his life like this. “And what makes you think any of that has changed? When I fucked the guy my brain didn’t fall out, but hey, thanks for making the assumption that sex somehow changed my core values,” he snaps. He liked Sam and Peggy, really, but this was uncalled for and made no sense whatsoever.

“Well I don’t see how anything could have stayed the same,” Peggy says, “it isn’t as if Stark stopped being the literal devil.”

“Or maybe you don’t have the whole story, but apparently you didn’t consider that,” Steve says, angry that he would even have to explain himself. Apprehension, he got that, if he was in their place he’d be confused too but he’d at least ask questions _before_ he freaked out on either one of them.

“Oh please, clearly sex _did_ knock your brain out,” she says, just as annoyed with him as he was with her.

“Do I seriously owe you two an explanation?” he asks because he, for one, did not feel he owed an explanation to anyone.

Sam holds up what he assumed was Christine’s article about him and Tony, “apparently you fucking do because you started dating a _year ago_? Six months ago you literally said that he’s basically the devil and you were _dating_?” Sam asks, looking hurt and confused. Alright, so he did have a point there.

“That’s bullshit,” he says, “Christine made it up to make our relationship sound more likable. Technically we’ve been together less than a month, and just for the record I called him the devil and a misogynist upon meeting him thank you. We met at that coffee shop, you know, from the first set of pictures of us that were leaked,” he says because that actually was vital information that they should have.

They both look even more annoyed and confused and his irritation with them leaves him wondering why when he’s been pretty forthcoming and accommodating. “You _lied to the public_ to be _likable_?” Peggy asks, rolling her eyes and sitting back in her seat, clearly disappointed in him.

“It wasn’t my idea, or Tony’s. I thought our meeting was cute, very original, very Tony Stark,” he says and he gets expectant looks from the two of them. “Clint stuck my number on the inside of some bathroom stall, he called, I answered. We were an instant hit,” he says. Hell, their chemistry surprised him sometimes because they just worked so… _well_ together.

“That makes you sound like a fucking cheap stripper that he bought,” Sam says and he would have told them that was why Christine changed the story but Tony chooses then to interrupt. He must have heard at least some of the conversation from the hall or something and he did not look impressed.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asks as he stomps over and pulls the StarkPad from Steve’s hands. “First off that’s so fucking ignorant and if the two of you are his friends he really needs an upgrade because that is unacceptable. Second, how dare you call him and act like he owes you some sort of explanation for his- shut your mouths- for his relationship. You two act like Steve woke up one day and thought ‘hmm, that guy is pretty much the embodiment of everything I hate so clearly he’s the _perfect_ guy to fall in love with!’ I trust that you two aren’t complete morons considering all current evidence to the contrary; you know that isn’t what happened so fuck you for acting like that’s how this played out. And double fuck you for acting as if you have _any_ right to act entitled to Steve’s dating decisions like that. Steve’s given me enough lectures on entitlement and privilege to know that if you two ever really believed anything you claim to you’d _never_ act like you have a right to dictate someone’s life decisions when they aren’t hurting anyone. Goodbye,” he snaps and ends the call.

“I… entitlement and privilege aren’t quite that simple,” he says for lack of something better.

“I know, and I know that I run a blatantly exploitative company that only serves to increase my bottom line at the cost of others. But we’re not talking about Tony Stark the CEO, we’re talking about Tony Stark the person and you dating me has _nothing_ to do with my company. It doesn’t make you somehow responsible for my actions, and it doesn’t mean your friends, and I use that term loosely, have a right to act like you’ve somehow become responsible for my every wrong. That makes no sense and our relationship, at least in itself, makes no difference to anyone. I don’t appreciate people acting like your involvement with me suddenly means you’ve become complicit in every terrible thing I’ve ever done or ever will do. At no point do you _ever_ become guilty of my wrong doings and if they had a half a brain they’d- okay, sorry, I’m just really angry,” he says, glaring out the window opposite to them.

He gets up and walks the few steps to Tony and places his hands on his shoulders, smoothing his shirt a little, “I got that. I appreciate you standing up for me but I mean come on, they _do_ have a point, from their perspective I basically abandoned everything I’ve ever believed-” Tony shakes his head sharply and cuts him off.

“No, _no_. This isn’t how things work, and what makes any of you think _I_ wouldn’t be the one sacrificing something, hmm? What makes you think I won’t give up the company and like… go live as a mountain person? Or that you won’t teach me your values for that matter. That isn’t how relationships work, you don’t start spending time with someone and drop all your values and conform to their way of life and if you do it sure as hell isn’t healthy. And when you start dating someone you _don’t_ become responsible for every bad thing they’ve ever done with or without you, that isn’t how responsibility works. You are not responsible for my actions, you are _not_ the Merchant of Death,” he says, breathing heavily.

This was about far more than Sam and Peggy and they both knew it though neither of them said it. Steve knew Tony felt guilty for his past in weapons but this was the first time he has seen any concrete evidence for it. He doesn’t know what to say, if he could say anything really, because Tony was very much all or nothing as Rhodey had pointed out several times and something told him that Tony didn’t really want comfort, at least not the verbal kind. Instead he leans forward and wraps his arms around Tony’s shoulders, pulling him in close. “I don’t want your pity,” Tony says quietly.

“I don’t pity you, Tony, this is comfort. And for the record you aren’t really the Merchant of Death either, not really, not anymore. If you were I wouldn’t want _anything_ to do with you,” he says with conviction because he wouldn’t. At all. He got the distinct impression that he wasn’t the only one who hated who Tony was at that point in his life.

*

Natasha practically squealed when she saw the cars. She was a fan of cars, god knew why, and Tony’s garage was basically her personal heaven. Tony was excited that he had found a kindred spirit because Rhodey wasn’t much of a car guy, Steve knew shit all, and Pepper had no interest in flashy vehicles. Natasha was happy too, because literally none of her friends cared about cars either outside of basic aesthetics. They happily chatted away, talking animatedly with their hands about the cars and squealing every so often when one of them knew something. “I don’t get it,” Rhodey says, looking confused.

“You and me both, buddy,” he says. He’d tell them that they were just cars but then he’d get dirty looks and a long lecture that he didn’t want to hear. He loved them both but he didn’t need a car lesson, thank you.

“They’re _cars_ , what’s so exciting?” Rhodey asks, frowning at Tony and Natasha as they moved on to another car to fawn over.

“Engines?” Steve guesses. Bucky, the sorry soul, had tried to like cars for Natasha and instead discovered that he hated cars with a fiery passion and wanted nothing to do with them. Granted that was post-car accident so that probably played its role in his dislike for the vehicles.

“Those aren’t even cool engines, _tanks_ are cool engines or no. And of all the cool shit Tony builds he gets excited over _cars_? I love him but he makes no sense,” Rhodey says.

“That we can all agree on, even Tony,” he says.

Rhodey snorts, “yeah I don’t think Tony would agree that he makes no sense,” he says, giving Steve looks of doubt.

“You underestimate my ability to argue,” he says, “Tony, we can all agree that you make no sense, right?” he says and as per expected Tony argues this. “Honey, you build tech so advanced it shouldn’t exist and you’re excited about cars, you hate spaghetti but love lasagna when it’s the same thing, you like the sound of vinyl but have no appreciation for actual vinyl, and you like beaches but hate swimming. You make no sense,” he says.

Tony opens his mouth to argue but seems to think better of it, “you might have a point about the beach thing,” he says.

“Told you I could get him to agree,” he tells Rhodey, smirking.

“You got him to agree to _part_ of that,” he says.

“Better than what you’ve gotten him to agree to,” he says, still proud of his skills.

“That’s true, Rhodes. He makes a point,” Tony says in his defense. Rhodey looks so offended and scandalized he has to laugh.

“Whose side are you on, man? I am your best friend, I gave you _life_ ,” he says dramatically.

“You showed me what a quarter was, Rhodey, that’s hardly life. And I am on the correct side, I can’t help that Steve’s right,” Tony says.

“I explained racism to you! And laundry! And cooking! And a whole bunch of other basic life skills! That’s basically life. I put up with the _frosted tips_ ,” Rhodey says and Steve has to agree that Rhodey wins that.

“Rhodey makes a point,” Steve says, figuring he’d give credit where it’s due, “also is that quarter thing a joke or is that legit?” he asks.

“Actually Steve’s explanations on racism were more useful than yours. And I still can’t do any of those life skills for shit, especially cook. I can’t even boil water.  And no, I had no idea what a quarter looked like, I’d never seen one at that point in my life,” Tony says.

Rhodey and Steve exchange a glance at the notion that Steve could have possibly explained racism better than Rhodey, who would have the lived experience to a far better job with an explanation. “Okay,” Rhodey says slowly, “you think the _white_ guy did a better job explaining racism than the _black_ guy. I am dying to know how that happened,” he says, raising an eyebrow in question.

“When you explained it you seemed to think I should have noticed like all of these differences, but why would I notice differences when I’m the one that’s being treated better and therefore assume you get treated the same way? Steve’s explanation started with the assumption that I’ve never noticed those things because that’s how privilege works, also he had a bunch of these nifty terms I could go look up. And instead of assuming I would know what it was like to experience racism he used common examples of people being racist because that’s what I’d be more likely to relate to. So I realized I was really racist and felt appropriately horrible,” Tony says, even looking kind of bad for his actions. So he should.

Rhodey squints, “in what world can a white guy explain racism better than a black guy?” he asks, looking confused.

“This one?” Tony says, frowning.

“To be fair I didn’t explain it better, I explained it in a way that was easier for him to understand, there’s a difference,” he points out.

“Good point,” Rhodey says, “I’m still mad about it though, I put in all this effort and some white asshole comes along and does a better job at it. What the fuck. Like all that effort I put into teaching you how to cook and you _still_ can’t boil water for shit let alone anything else. Even with a kettle it things seem to go drastically wrong. Remember that time you blew the dorm up? You were using the _microwave_ Tony, how?” he asks, looking confused and lost. To be fair Steve’s watched Clint blow up enough microwaves to know it was indeed possible, even if there was nothing in there that should logically explode or blow up.

“I have no idea but that was fun, I should try to see if I can recreate that reaction in the lab so I can take a closer look at what happened. Not as bad as the time I almost created a black hole that would have swallowed the earth though, that would not have been fun,” Tony says.

Steve rubs his temples, “okay, I’m going to ignore that black hole thing because that’s just too much. Can we go back to the quarter thing though because I am having a hard time wrapping my head around a person not knowing what a quarter looks like,” he says.

*

“Have you ever gone back and looked at your old profile pages on random sites and cringed?” Steve asks.

Tony looks up from the paperwork he had spread around him, “no, but if you have embarrassing information on your friends I’m always down for blackmail material,” he says and even gives him a weak smile even though the paperwork he was currently doing was sucking his soul out. What a sweetie.

“You should take a look at your MySpace page, it features the frosted tips,” he says and Tony lets out a deep sigh.

“You’re never going to let the frosted tips go, are you?” he asks, “I will find something blackmail worthy on you, it’s a matter of time,” he says.

Steve turns his StarkPad around, “think you can find something worse than an uncooked chicken on your head?” he asks and Tony frowns for a moment before coming closer and pulling the StarkPad out of his hands.

For a moment he looks like he’s at a loss, “JARVIS, send me Rhodey,” he says, “I want an explanation for why, exactly, my head is shoved into the anus of a bird.”

“Shouldn’t… shouldn’t _you_ be the one with the explanation?” Steve asks, frowning. Though Steve supposed there wasn’t much that could explain someone wearing an uncooked chicken as a hat. Unless you were Clint, or, apparently, Tony.

“What is it you need an explanation for?” Rhodey asks, appearing in the doorway looking done with Tony’s shenanigans already.

Tony turns the StarkPad to face Rhodey, “why, exactly, am I wearing an uncooked chicken as a _hat_?” he asks.

“You can’t tell Tony Stark nothin’,” Rhodey says and walks away, having given a satisfactory answer according to the look on Tony’s face but Steve was confused.

“What was that?” he asks.

“That is what happens when I get drunk and decide something is a good idea. I have no knowledge of this chicken or why it was on my head but I seem very enthused in this- oh my god this is embarrassing. I used the XD face,” he says, wrinkling his nose as he moves through his past on MySpace. “Oh my god the frosted tips are red, that is- oh my god it’s even _worse_ than that now they’re orange who let me out! Who let me do this! Why did _I_ let me do this! JARVIS drugs and alcohol do not account for this, explain,” he says, giving the ceiling a look.

“Sir, you refused to listen, as always,” JARVIS informs him.

“Next time I do something like this have Dummy knock me out for the next ever. God, what color even _is_ that?” he asks and Steve has _got_ to see what picture Tony was looking at. Oh right, the one where the frosted tips migrated to a grown out neon yellow state, right before he got a haircut and some fashion sense.

“In your defense you got hot after this, like a magical boy transformation. You disappeared for a week and came out _way_ attractive. Seriously, the difference is astounding, you go from a cross between a burnt out seventies porn star and a boy band member to classic Hollywood hot. Drool worthy,” Steve says, almost actually drooling. Even if Tony was still a massive asshole then he was still extremely attractive, it was just a fact okay.

“Well thanks, babe, confidence booster,” Tony says, grinning.

“Like you need one of those,” he says, stepping in closer, “you’re already pretty confident,” he says even though they both know that wasn’t technically true.

“Oh, but I could always use a reminder,” Tony says and steps closer, pulling Steve into a kiss.

“Why do I always walk in on you two making out? Do you not do anything else? Are you doing this to deliberately torture me?” Natasha asks, waving a hand around. In her other hand was another StarkPad, this one borrowed from Tony, and he was going to assume that she and Bucky were video chatting.

“Please, Romanov, I have better things to do with Steve than contemplate your ultimate demise, like attend to my own pleasure,” Tony says, grinning.

“Ew,” Bucky says, voice traveling from the StarkPad.

“Oh shut up Bucky, you once ate five day old tacos, you don’t get to say anything is gross now,” Steve says.

“That’s regrettably true. I stand by that they were worth it, even through the diarrhea,” Bucky says and Tony wrinkles his nose.

“Mood killer. I’m going to finish my paperwork on that disgusting note,” he says and quickly kisses Steve before heading back to his desk.

“Thanks, Bucky,” Steve says, walking over to give Bucky a proper glare in jest of course.

“Welcome!” Bucky says, lighting up a bit when Steve’s face pops into the frame. It was hard to stay mad at him, even jokingly, when he looked so excited to see Steve.

“Tell him about the crackers,” Natasha says, looking excited.

Bucky sighs, “alright, so I used to be left handed before my left arm bit the dust, I’m sure you remember,” he says and Steve nods because yes, he obviously remembered Bucky being left-handed. “Well I wanted these crackers- hi Tony-” he throws in when Tony enters the frame behind Steve, probably drawn to what sounded like a funny story, “so I go to get the fucking crackers. Only for a moment I forgot I had no fucking left arm so I go to reach for the damn things with my nub. Clearly that doesn’t work. You know that scene in Meet the Robinsons where the dinosaur is trying to reach for that guy but his head is to big? That was me, at that moment, ‘I have a big head and little arms’,” Bucky says, wiggling his stump.

Tony goes from not laughing at all to the jackal stage with no buildup in between. He doubles over and Steve isn’t sure who he’s laughing at, Tony or Bucky, because they were both hilarious. “Thanks for laughing at my disability, guys,” Bucky says, deadpan, which sends Tony past the jackal stage into the not-breathing-or-making-noise stage. Steve can’t help but laugh harder too, knowing Bucky wasn’t actually serious, this happened semi-frequently even still because it was hard to drop twenty two years, at the time, of habit. Two years was not enough time to get used to not having a body part you had for twenty two.

“At least it wasn’t like that old lady incident all over again,” Bucky says and Steve starts laughing all over again but this draws Tony’s attention.

“Old lady story?” he asks, only half in control over his own laughter. Bucky and Natasha exchange a look and it was a testament to how well they knew each other that they could manage to come to some sort of agreement in a look over a video call.

“So we were back home in Bucky’s and Steve’s backhoe bullshit town and we need food. Bucky has no fucking arm so we can use the handicap space; again, he’s missing an _arm_. So we park and we get out and this old lady, she loses her shit about entitled our generation is, people actually need that spot, blah, blah. We know, but she isn’t letting us get a word in edgewise and eventually Bucky has enough so he pulls his prosthetic arm off and whips it full force at the old lady,” she says and Tony loses his shit all over again. “That woman got a nice long lecture in how ‘young’ is not synonymous with ‘good health’, ‘fully able-bodied’, or ‘entitled’ and had a twenty three year old throw his left arm at her. It’s a lesson she’ll never forget,” Natasha says dramatically.

“Damn straight,” Bucky chimes in for extra dramatics. Tony sits down on the ground and curls his arms around his stomach, laughing harder.

“Oh man that was so funny, the look on her face when she noticed you _pulled your arm off_ to throw it at her. I mean that’s some hard core shit when it probably didn’t occur to her right away that that arm wasn’t an actual arm. Just imagine watching some punk ass kid getting so pissed off with you he straight up _rips his own arm off_ to use it as a weapon, I’d shit,” Steve says. That old lady looked like she was about to honestly.

Tony leans against his leg, “stop,” he wheezes out between fits of laughter, “I have to pee.”

“Bucky’s left arm has been on some serious adventures over the last two years,” he says, “way more than when it was attached.”

“Remember the first time we met Sam and he asked for a hand so I threw my arm to him? He looked _so_ horrified,” Bucky says and Tony starts tapping his leg, presumably to get him to tell Bucky to shut up. Sam’s face had been priceless though because for a moment Steve swore he thought, like the old lady, that Bucky ripped his own arm off but for a joke in Sam’s case. Then he seemed to clue in and he didn’t look so terrified.

“I need to pee,” Tony wheezes, “but I can’t get up because-” his words are cut off by another fit of laughter.

“Poor Tony is dying on the floor,” he tells Bucky, “and he’s laughing too hard to get up to pee.”

“Imagine explaining that to aliens. Like hey guys, we’re a pretty weird species, sometimes we become so overjoyed we urinate,” Bucky says with a straight face and Tony makes wheezing noises on the ground.

“ _Enough_ ,” Tony squeaks out, waving an arm around.


	11. Chapter 11

Tony and Rhodey were off to do… whatever it was they had to do and Natasha was overjoyed to have full access to Tony’s cars. Driving around doing whatever seemed like a logical way to waste time now that they weren’t so jet legged and Steve was happy to indulge Nat in her love of cars for a few hours. “What sort of shenanigans are we going to get into, Rogers?” she asks as they made their way down some road he was certain Nat picked at random.

“Preferably the legal kind. I’m shocked no one has brought up my criminal record in the media thus far,” he says.

Nat snorts, “you were arrested for vandalizing a pro-life ad, what about that looks terrible or conflicts with your current public image? You’re totally my hero for that, Bucky should be jealous,” she says, grinning. “But you did say preferably so, what illegal shit are we going to get into?” she asks.

“None, Nat, we can’t get arrested in another country!” he says.

“Please, we have Tony to bail us out, we’ll be fine,” she says, “and I’ve always wanted to test my jail breaking skills,” she muses.

“ _No_ , Nat. Legal activities only,” he says.

“Fine. Let’s get batshit wasted and buy Bucky a bunch of stupid trinkets with that shiny card Tony gave you this morning,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows. She presses the gas pedal a little harder and squeals happily when the car responds, which he doesn’t understand because the car literally did exactly what it was supposed to.

“Sorry, the card had a short life and has now made its way to a trash bin cut in half. JARVIS better keep his filthy mouth shut about it too,” he says.

“Certainly, sir,” the AI responds and he and Nat freak out so bad they just about crash a car that likely cost more than both of their educations combined. Natasha, thankfully, is actually a good driver and she manages to correct the car quickly before they die, the car along with them.

“Jesus fuck!” Steve yells, “a little warning, JARVIS!”

“Sir, that was my warning. I am unused to people who are unaware of my presence,” the AI says, almost sounding concerned. “Are you alright?” the AI asks.

Natasha glares at the speakers, “you could have given me a warning _before_ I was speeding down a road and almost spun out and flipped us, resulting in our imminent death, you ass. You should have pointed out you were there like _when I started the car_ ,” Nat says, squinting at the speakers before turning her attention back to the road.

“My apologies,” the AI says, “may I suggest a bar?”

“Yes, please,” Natasha says and JARVIS gives them directions.

*

He had, in his defense, tried to sober up before returning to Tony’s house but his tiny body took nothing at all to get drunk and retained alcohol surprisingly well. Needless to say he was still wasted when Natasha, whom he swore was never drunk to begin with, drove them home dead ass sober. They did, however, meet a couple of hilarious Canadians with whom they had future plans with. Wade was fucking entertaining and Logan, although far more reserved, was also considerably humorous.

“Are you drunk?” Tony asks, looking very amused as he stumbled out of his shoes with minimal help from Natasha, who knew he liked to be an independent drunk even though he was fucking helpless.

“No, I’m pref- pefec- plef- I’m shober,” he says, mostly not managing to slur that last bit. That was an accomplishment in his opinion.

“Yeah okay,” Tony says, “you need any help?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” he says proudly as he trips over his own feet and almost topples over, “that was a fluke,” he says, enunciating each word carefully.

“I’m sure it was. Wanna tell me about your adventures today?” he asks, laughing as he shakes off Natasha, who was trying to help him do… hell he didn’t know.

“Your AI tried to kill us. Fuck you JARVIS,” Steve says, glaring at the ceiling.

“Aww, be nice to JARVIS, I’m sure it was an accident, J?” Tony asks, glancing up to the ceiling.

“They were not aware of my presence in the car, Natasha is an excellent driver, sir,” the AI informs them.

“Yeah. Tried to kill us,” Steve says, giving the ceiling suspicious looks.

Tony doesn’t seem to know how to react to that for a moment before he starts laughing, “oh my god, the car’s okay, right?” he asks.

“Shouldn’t you ask if _we’re_ okay?” Steve asks, crossing his arms with minimal difficulties.

This only seems to make Tony laugh more, “Steve, you’re clearly well enough to get drunk and Natasha looks fine too. Is the car okay?” he asks, looking at Nat.

“It’s fine, please warn me about your wall robot being in every god damn space you own before I almost die,” she says. They both agreed that Bucky was to never know too, it wouldn’t exactly earn Tony brownie points and it would make Bucky anxious for no reason because they were both fine. Steve could do without the hovering that Bucky would be bound to do.

“JARVIS is in basically everything I own,” Tony says, “just sort of expect he’s there.”

“Oh my god,” Steve stage whispers, “he’s seen us have sex! Peeping Tom robot!”  He presses his hands to his face, embarrassed that some code was privy to his sex life.

“If it makes you feel better, sir, I have been subjected to worse,” the AI says in a tone that sounded far too much like dry wit.

“That does not make me feel better!” he hisses loudly.

“Though you are the first one he’s let restrain him after that time in college,” JARVIS informs him.

“Kinky,” Natasha says, grinning and gathering blackmail material.

“Shut up JARVIS! She doesn’t need to know. Wait, what time in college?” he asks, catching up to the AI’s words a little late.

“If we could refrain from sharing my embarrassing college stories that’d be great, personally I’d like to focus on Steve’s embarrassing present,” Tony says, grinning at him.

“There are no chickens on my head,” he points out and Natasha bursts out laughing.

“Go to bed, Steve, you’re so drunk you aren’t making sense. Sleep it off,” she tells him.

“I make perfect sense! Raw chickens have not found a way onto my head!” he says, willing her to understand.

“Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?” Natasha asks Tony.

“No clue,” Tony says, smirking, “none at all.” He did something, Steve knows he did, but he has no proof.

“Great, put him to bed, will you?” she asks.

“I am not a toddler,” he points out petulantly. They ignore his comment and exchange their own pleasantries and good byes.

“I’m showing Natasha the chicken picture tomorrow and she will get it,” Steve threatens when Natasha goes.

Tony grins, “oh honey, see the thing about showing a tech genius his embarrassing past is that he knows how to bury it. There is no proof to be found,” Tony says, “and no one will believe a grown man would do something so stupid.”

“Rhodey!” Steve says, remembering that he had seen the picture too, and been there by the sounds of it.

“Oh he’s been blackmailed into silence with threats of revealing his own embarrassing tales,” Tony says, smiling when Steve looks offended.

“You _are_ the devil,” he says, hand pressed to his heart dramatically.

“Go to bed,” Tony says, gently nudging him towards the bed. He passes out as soon as he hits the mattress.

*

For some inexplicable reason Tony felt bad for having to do things, which really did make no sense because Steve had expected that and hanging out with Natasha was always bound to be interesting. Even if they weren’t video calls with Bucky proved to be considerably entertaining. Plus his lovely new Canadian friends who also liked to lament about American politics and the absurdity of the elections. He did, however, come to a compromise with Tony that involved Tony doing paperwork while he did his own thing while in the same general vicinity so Tony didn’t feel like he was skipping out on Steve.

Tony looks up from his work at him and frowns, looking behind him, “am I in your way?” he asks. Steve was poised with his drawing pad across from Tony with some pencils spread out around him.

“No, you aren’t in my way,” he says, grinning.

Looking behind him again Tony squints, “that’s a pretty boring landscape to draw,” he says and Steve smiles wider.

“Yeah, sure,” he says, “boring.” Tony spares the empty space behind him another glace before deciding that paperwork was more important and he returns to his work. It was adorable; really, that Tony didn’t seem to clue in that Steve wasn’t drawing the landscape behind Tony. Sometimes that surprised Steve still, that Tony had so much yet so little confidence and how often that fluctuated. It must be exhausting, he thinks, to go from thinking you were scum to god and back again but he got the distinct feeling that Tony was used to the contradictions in his own thought processes.

People were hard to draw because Steve in particular didn’t want just a replica of what they looked like, he wanted to capture their personality in the image too and that wasn’t easy. It wasn’t like personalities were tangible and easily transferable to paper the way faces were, well, faces weren’t easy but they were easier than personalities. Lucky him he had spent a long time watching Tony’s facial expressions so when the angle wasn’t quite right he had enough frame of reference to get the drawing right. It was the eyes that always seemed to hold the most life and that was hard to draw, especially because Tony’s eyes were probably his most noticeable feature.

He had gorgeous eyes though he knew Tony didn’t think so. He thought brown was boring but he just wasn’t looking at them right. They were so dark in some lights, but in others they almost looked like honey, and when the sun was setting they looked like they were almost orange, and there was so much _life_ there. Tony thought it was his goatee that made his face distinguishable and he wasn’t wrong exactly, he did look like a completely different person without it, but it was his eyes that truly set him apart. That, and the dark lashes that framed them so nicely. He had no idea how Tony could possibly dislike his eye colour when it was just so stunning.

Tony notices his staring and looks behind him again, “are you sure I’m not in your way?”  he asks.

“Yes, Tony, I am sure that you aren’t in my way,” he says and laughs as Tony looks behind him again.

“Shit you have a way longer attention span than me, there’s nothing out there but like… a tree and a cloud, I think that’s a hedge. I don’t know. But I could _not_ concentrate on that for as long as you have, kudos,” he says and Steve snorts at Tony’s cluelessness. He was adorable, really, and he was even nice enough to change his position just a bit, back to the position Steve had started drawing him in. He picks up one of his brown pencils and starts working on Tony’s eyes.

“I’m not drawing the damn tree, Tony,” he says and watches as Tony works out what that meant.

He ducks his head in embarrassment, “oh, I’m a terrible model, I move too much,” he says guiltily.

“You’re a great model,” Steve says, “but that’s probably because you’re fucking gorgeous at every angle. I had a hell of a time choosing which one I wanted to draw.” Tony smiles just a bit and ducks his head for a moment before smiling wide, the corners of his eyes crinkling just a bit in a show of actual joy, making Steve’s day.

*

“Why do you guys daddy kink George Washington so hard?” Wade asks and Natasha chokes on her milkshake, a feat really.

“He’s the father of democracy,” Steve says in a tired tone that indicated he didn’t much believe popular discourse around that.

Logan squints, “didn’t he own slaves?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Steve says in the same tired tone. Wade and Logan exchange a look of confusion and Steve feels that in his soul, really.

“Okay but like Jefferson makes even less sense. You people are fuckin nuts with your founding fathers. I mean people know who John A Macdonald is, but like… he was racist as fuck, even if racism in Canada is like Fight Club; we don’t talk about it but we know. We know he sucked,” Wade says.

“Speak for yourself, I have no fuckin’ clue who that is,” Logan says and Steve frowns because _he_ knew who that was.

“That is the first Prime Minister of Canada, very involved in confederation,” Steve says. How he knew that when Logan didn’t he had no clue. Well, he supposed he picked up bits of Canadian history studying American history given the countries were on top of each other but still.

“Look, all I know is that South Asian men didn’t get the right to vote till ’47 and we all celebrate white women getting the vote in the 20’s like it was the end of people fighting for voting rights. Don’t get me wrong, that’s important, but like Wade said, racism in Canada is like Fight Club only we need to start talkin’ about it. That’s it, that’s all I got on politics, we’re done with that subject let’s get food, I’m hungry,” Logan says, picking up his menu.

“Can we go back to Thomas ‘all men are created equal’ Jefferson the slave owner because I think that needs some exploration,” Wade says.

“Good fucking luck,” Steve says, “ever listen to Hamilton the musical? Cabinet battle number one my friend, you will laugh even if you have no clue who Hamilton is. You should listen to it though, it’s actually pretty historically accurate,” he says and Logan looks like he wants to jump out the nearest window.

“Oh I’ve listened to it, and Logan has no choice to love it because I drive and he keeps his damn mouth shut,” Wade says, grinning.

“Better than fucking Cats,” Logan mumbles, “didn’t mind Wicked, hated Phantom of the Opera, if I have to listen to the Lion King soundtrack one more time I’ll fucking kill Mufasa myself.”

Natasha snorts, “I feel that. Remember when Bucky decided that he was obsessed with Will fucking Ferrell? Of all people _Will Ferrell_. He could have chosen Will Smith, or at least good Will Ferrell movies like Megamind and Stranger than Fiction, not fucking Step Brothers and Blades of Glory,” she mumbles.

“Hey, Blades of Glory is a wonderfully horrible movie, like Final Destination before the concept was beaten till it was dead,” Steve says. Something about the absurdity of a couple of people trying not to chop each other’s heads off with skates spoke to him.

“The Saw movies,” Natasha counters and yeah, fair point.

“I love those movies,” Wade says and exactly no one is surprised by that, “and Quentin Tarantino movies.”

“Fast and the Furious films are my all-time favorite movies if you ignore all the background sexism,” Natasha says, which, of course. Cars were her thing but also the cars were pretty and shit blew up and Vin Diesel was hot in that.

Wade nods, “Vin Diesel has the sexiest voice in those movies,” he says.

“Oh my god _yes_ ,” Steve says, finally happy that someone agreed with him, “all of my friends are crazy people who think Vin Diesel’s voice is not hot. Did I mention they were crazy?” he says.

“If I were to do the BDSM thing I’d want Vin Diesel to be the one to tell me he was going to gag me and spank my ass,” Wade says and Logan gives him the most bizarrely confused look, “what? If you don’t want Vin Diesel to gag and spank you that’s you’re problem, man. Steve gets it,” he says.

“Actually I could do without the gag, I have breathing problems, but I would love to ride his ass like a battle steed to Valhalla,” he says. Natasha snorts and almost spits out her milkshake again.

“So, what’s your deep, dark fantasy?” Wade asks Natasha, wiggling his eyebrows.

She sighs, looks at Steve, and sighs again. “I’ve had sex fantasies about Tony for years, don’t tell Bucky he’ll feel bad,” she says, looking like she was hoping _he_ wouldn’t feel bad.

“Fair enough, me too if I’m honest. I’m a sell out,” he says dramatically, looking off out the window they were sitting beside for extra effect, earning a few snickers for his efforts.

“Your turn to share, Logan!” Wade says excitedly, elbowing Logan in the side.

 Logan sighs, “I had a sex dream about Scott once and it wasn’t horrible. Don’t tell Jean, and _definitely_ don’t tell Scott,” he says, “I will _end_ you if you do.” Wade’s eyes get hilariously large and he squeals.

“I knew it! I knew you had a thing for Summers that you were hiding behind a weird obsession with Jean! Don’t worry, Summers likes you back, I mean he says he hates you but like. He spends _way_ too much time talking about you to hate you. You should totally just sandwich Jean, she’d be into it,” Wade says, bouncing in his seat excitedly. He had no clue what they were talking about but the look on Logan’s face was absolutely priceless.

“Eat dick, Wilson,” he mumbles, burying his head in the menu.

“My pleasure!” Wade says enthusiastically, earning an irritated grunt from Logan.

*

Steve sits curled up next to Tony reading a book for his thesis while Tony went over some design he was working on for SI. “Christine leaked that video, by the way, the one she took while she was making plans to have you tear down a crapton of politicians that features you ripping me a new asshole,” Tony says somewhat begrudgingly.

“I also pointed out that you’re crazy smart and that people would be stupid not to work with you,” Steve says gently, setting his book aside. “And I know. Peggy and Sam called to apologize and they were even nice enough to stay up late so they didn’t wake me up calling.” The first time they had just happened to be up late and talking about him before deciding fuck it, they’d call. At first they got Bucky, who then informed them he was in Italy, which prompted call two, which Steve answered. This time, at least, they looked properly guilty and Steve was happy to inform them of Tony’s views of responsibility because he was right. Dating Tony didn’t suddenly make him responsible for his actions; Tony’s actions never became his to dictate via relationship and vice versa. The suggestion that he _did_ suddenly gain control, and therefore responsibility, for Tony’s actions was insidious at best.

“They should apologize,” Tony snaps, suddenly angry, “I can’t believe you have friends that treat you like that. You need new friends, like five hundred more like Natasha,” Tony says.

Steve snorts, “you only like Nat because she talks you into doing stupid shit instead of out of it. And Sam and Peggy _are_ good friends, they were just understandably confused- Tony shush- and I happily borrowed your arguments on responsibility to point out they’re wrong. Which they accepted because that’s what good friends do. While we’re on the subject of good friends though, Pepper hasn’t exactly made herself out to be a great friend lately and her reactions are understandable too, not right, but understandable,” he says. Tony looks less irritated with Peggy and Sam when Steve draws the clear parallels between their reactions and Pepper’s like he figured he would.

“In her slight defense she also recently apologized. She wanted Rhodey to prove that I was actually fine and you weren’t secretly some nutty parasite and he delivered so I ended up getting an apology,” he says.

Steve frowns, “she sent Rhodey to spy on you? Creepy,” he says, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

“Ehh, Rhodey wanted vacation time and Pepper pulled some strings, the fact that he happened to actually create an argument was just a bonus because it means neither of us catch flack at the end of the week,” Tony says, seemingly alright with this.

“And what, exactly, was his evidence?” he asks. He was curious, really, as to what had convinced Pepper that he was not the literal devil.

“Sitting in silence,” Tony says. Steve waits for him to continue but nothing else comes.

“Sitting in silence?” he asks, frowning. There had to be more to it than that, people sat in silence all the time, that hardly proved anything.

“Yeah,” Tony says, “I can’t fucking stand sitting in silence. It used to get me in shit all the time when I was still in school because I couldn’t focus during exams. Actually I consistently flunked them, which made no sense because I was smarter than everyone in the room, in most of the world actually. It took a while but eventually one of my profs finally thought to ask how the hell that happened. Anyways, Pep knows the only one I’ve ever been able to sit in silence with for any length of time is Rhodey so it came as a hell of a surprise when you were added to the list.” He looks mildly uncomfortable, like something was bothering him.

“What about silence bothers you so much, if you don’t mind me asking,” he says, placing his hand on Tony’s thigh and squeezing gently to provide a little comfort.

The arm Tony had wrapped around his shoulders tightens a little, “Howard liked to hear himself talk, like people claim I do, so he never really shut up. That was great because if he wasn’t talking shit was about to go down and it didn’t usually end well,” he says quietly, “so I learned two things. One, silence meant getting my ass kicked and when rooms go silent I still can’t help but panic a little. And two, if I didn’t say as much as I could in the bits of silence I had no one would ever hear what I had to say, which is why I talk so much. I just happen to look confident doing it so people assume I’m like Howard,” Tony says in a resentful tone.

Steve ducks his head, “I… can’t say I’m not guilty of thinking that, even if I thought it made no sense,” he says, feeling horrible.

“At least you saw the contradictions, that’s more than most people ever see,” Tony says, “most people can’t look past the bright and shiny Stark Legacy! God, you know how fucking annoying it is that people parade Howard around like he’s some kind of hero? Every god damn year on the anniversary of his death people always ask stupid shit about how he influenced me, or what he would think of the company now or whatever. Who cares? The guy is dead; can he just stay that way? And does no one care that my mom and Jarvis died too? Because they both meant way more to me than Howard could ever hope to considering he still regularly fucks my life up from beyond the grave. And here I thought I had _finally_ managed to escape his bullshit but no, no one cares that he abused me and my mom no matter how explicit I detail the abuse. He always said they wouldn’t care, guess he was right,” Tony mumbles and Steve holds back tears, barely.

The back of his throat burns like hell and he has to blink fast but he’s used to keeping from crying to he manages. “Howard sounds like a grade-A bastard,” he says finally, all too aware of the silence that followed Tony’s rant.

“Yeah, but I guess at least he saved himself the embarrassment of wearing a raw chicken as a hat,” Tony says, making a sorry attempt to tell a joke. He laughs in a sort of hysterical, somewhat shocked way people do when a joke follows something terrible before the laugh is cut off abruptly. “Speaking of embarrassing habits of younger versions of us though, I found your DeviantArt account, you know, the one from when you were fourteen,” Tony says and Steve curls into a ball.

“Put me in the shame cube,” he whispers because _god_ that was fucking embarrassing. He drew _so many_ gay things, which would be fine if they weren’t all _horrible_. This was the worst conversation transition ever but he figured he’d let Tony out of that conversation via Steve’s terrible fourteen year old anime phase.

“You’re drawings of Batman and Superman kissing were so endearing,” Tony says and Steve lets out a loud groan. This was the last time he was letting Tony open up to him because he couldn’t handle the embarrassment of going through shit he did at fourteen every time Tony said something sad. It was worse because he probably did have at least one embarrassing fourteen year old moment for every sad thing Tony had to say. He was dumb at that age. He had a _Naruto_ phase.

“My personal favorite, though, were all the adorable pictures on your old Facebook,” Tony says cheerfully and he leans forward, grabbing a StarkPad off the table. “See, weren’t you cute?” he says, revealing the _most embarrassing picture of him oh my god_.

“I was fourteen, that was a _decade ago_ ,” he moans, “let it die!” He couldn’t _believe_ that he had ever thought bright purple hair had ever been a good idea, and if that wasn’t bad enough he topped it off with pink contacts and fucking _whiskers_. He looked like a bad anime character, which was probably the point and that was why fourteen year old him needed to be thrown in the fucking trash.

For a moment Tony looks surprised, and then he looks horrified. “Oh my god you’re so young and I’m so old, I’m basically dust!” Tony says dramatically.

“Oh my god Tony, you aren’t dust you aren’t even forty, you are so dramatic,” he says, rolling his eyes fondly.

“You know what, I’m not going to focus on my inevitable and ultimate demise, instead I will focus on asking you what the hell this even _is_ ,” Tony says gesturing to that god damn horrible picture of him that was currently gracing the screen of his StarkPad.

“That is something that needs to be eradicated from history,” he says, “and it is way worse than your chicken because I did that sober and clearheaded. Fourteen year old me was a strange and demented creature.”

“Fourteen year old me totaled cars every other week, pretty sure… whatever this is is a step up from that,” Tony says, frowning at the picture and tilting his head to the side like that would help him figure out what the fuck Steve had been thinking. Steve’s done a lot of self-reflection and thus far all he had to explain the sorry state of his younger self was that he was young and that was just dumb.

“Pretty sure if I had cars to total I probably would have fucked them up too. The first phone I ever got went through the wash in less than a week so I mean that was basically my version of a car. So uh, kids are irresponsible because they haven’t had a chance to learn. You probably shouldn’t have been driving though,” he says. Dear god, when he was fourteen he thought drawing _whiskers_ on his face and going out in public like that was a good plan, god knows what he would have done with a car.

“Yeah, fourteen year old me was hanging out with college kids, I needed to overcompensate for my age and lack of experience and the poor cars suffered. Half the models I ruined were fucking custom too, if I ever build a successful time machine the first thing I’m doing is punching fourteen year old me out for being a dickshit,” Tony says and Steve believes it. He had a weird attachment to his cars now, he couldn’t imagine Tony thought fourteen year old him was anything less than a moron for ruining what he now considered his children.

“I still think it’s bizarre that you consider your cars kids, but I mean I consider some of my sweaters kids so. Maybe I’m not the most qualified to talk here,” he says. Bucky regularly tried to mom him and get him to throw out the more threadbare sweaters but he absolutely refused like a proper child would. Natasha tended to watch the whole situation unfold in amusement before stepping in and telling Bucky to stop moming Steve.

“Natasha agrees with me,” Tony says in his own defense.

“Natasha told you to make a vine featuring you tossing a bomb in a tub because a literal bath bomb would be hilarious,” he says, fondly done with their shit. The two got along famously and more than once he and Rhodey had ended up sharing looks and wondering how the shit they were going to convince the two that their ideas were terrible.

“That would be hilarious and I’m totally going to do it,” Tony says and Steve groans. Of course he had unwittingly encouraged Tony to do the dumb thing.

“You’re going to destroy your bathroom for a _vine_?” he asks.

“Hell yeah,” Tony says, dead serious and Steve sighs. He couldn’t believe he loved this idiot.


	12. Chapter 12

Tony manages to weasel out of meetings on their last day in Italy and Natasha and Rhodey kindly leave them alone for a bit. Steve, as per usual, was excited about food and this earns a frown from Tony, “you and Natasha get excited over the weirdest stuff,” he says, “like windows opening and closing. What the hell?” he asks.

“The last four places we’ve lived in had windows that either didn’t open or they didn’t close right once they were opened, which generally lead to us being cold and our shit being wet,” he says. On one memorable occasion they accidentally froze part of their couch because they forgot to attempt to close the window and a storm hit followed by unseasonably cold weather. They were not impressed. At least they had refrained from freezing something super important and irreplaceable, like Bucky’s arm or one of Clint’s hearing aids. To be fair Clint did once loose an aid in the snow but they had found it in the spring thaw and by some miracle the thing lived so maybe luck would strike twice should something happen again.

“Isn’t that like… against the law or something? There has to be laws against bad living conditions,” he says and Steve laughs.

“Oh honey, you think people care about bad living conditions, that’s cute. There are laws, not that people follow them, and it takes time, effort, and money to go to court and those are things people without money don’t have,” he says, “so working windows are exciting.” Sometimes it was almost funny how much Tony didn’t know because he had no frame of reference, like having never seen a quarter before, or any other small change. Steve couldn’t imagine living Tony’s reality, even when he technically was, because it all felt so temporary and too good to be true. Tony, on the other hand, just seemed floored that the realities Steve described existed in the first place.

“I bought you an apartment,” Tony blurts and Steve drops the cup he was holding, shattering it against the kitchen tiles.

“You did _what_!” he yells, ignoring the glass at his feet in favor of glaring at Tony. He looks sheepish under the glare, which probably would have been amusing to witness of it wasn’t for the situation, “you take it back!” he yells.

“Um,” Tony says, shifting uncomfortably.

“What did you do?” he asks, ignoring that he sounded like a pissed off dog owner yelling at their pet for getting into the garbage. Tony had certainly adopted the guilty puppy look too, which he also ignored.

“Natasha thought it was a great idea!” he says in his own defense and _damnit_. That’s what that look was, after he got an actual number for Tony’s net worth before they had even left, god _damnit_.

“Natasha thinks bombing your tub for a vine is a good idea too,” he says, “you know I don’t like it when you spend crazy amounts of money on me, Tony!”

Tony curls in on himself a bit, “you can’t take it back,” he mumbles, “your friends sort of already live there.”

“They _what_ -” Steve cuts himself off and takes a deep breath, pulling his phone out of his pocket and calling Bucky. He answers on the second ring, which was what Steve was counting on because everyone else would probably feel guilty for doing this behind his back and avoid him. “What the fuck, Bucky?” he asks before Bucky can get a greeting out. He accidentally hits the speaker phone button and he figures fuck it, he might as well leave it so he could glare at something other than Tony. He looked sufficiently shamed for his actions anyways.

Silence greets him on the other end and oh, he best not hang up. Someone shuffles around in the background and asks Bucky something, which gets a mumbled response that Steve didn’t quite catch. “Um,” Bucky says in his own defense and he was so going to kick Bucky’s ass for this when he got back to some random god damn apartment he never even asked for.

“No!” someone in the background yells and it takes a second for him to place Clint’s voice, “you can’t take it back!” he yells, closer to wherever Bucky was this time. “Please, I’ll be _cleeeeeeeeean_ ,” he wails.

“I spent months conditioning you and all I had to do was buy you an apartment?” Coulson snaps, presumably behind Clint as always.

“I wanted food, you wanted clean, I got food for clean. Everyone won,” he says, “except _Steve do not not accept this gift pleaaaaaase_!” he yells. Tony gives the phone an odd look but Steve choses to ignore it in favor of telling Clint to pack his shit.

“Who the hell thought this was a good idea and why?” he asks, glaring at his phone because it was the next best thing to actually glaring at his friends. He should have video called so they all felt properly guilty.

“Natasha started it,” Bucky says, throwing her under the bus quickly, “but it’s _nice_ , you’d like it,” he says in a piss poor attempt to defend himself.

“The windows open _and_ close!” Peter shouts from the background.

“We have food!” Gamora adds.

“We can’t hear traffic up here!” Clint says.

“Shower pressures great,” Bucky mumbles, begrudgingly risking his friendship to persuade him to keep this crazy extravagant gift.

He perks up, “shower pressure?” he asks. Showers were his personal weakness and Tony’s shower was like the heavens had descended into the bathroom just to clean him. He was weak, he’d admit it, if the shower pressure was good enough he’d probably accept the damn apartment but grudgingly so hopefully Tony didn’t do this sort of thing again.

“It’s like a human car wash!” Clint blurts, sounding far closer to the receiver now, “ _keeeeeeep it_ ,” he whispers creepily.

Tony looks as creeped out by that as he felt and he rolls his eyes, “don’t get your hopes up,” he says and hangs up. “ _You_ have some explaining to do,” he tells Tony.

“I just want to take care of you and this is the only way I know how,” he mumbles, looking at the counter in front of him.

Steve sighs and rubs his temples, “I can’t even be mad,” he says, “that’s genuinely upsetting. You have more to offer me than money, Tony.”

“Not really, all I’ve done so far is completely turn your life upside down, even when I tried to do something nice,” he says, looking upset with himself. Steve inwardly berates himself for not considering how Tony would view this before freaking out.

“I’d hug you but I’m currently surrounded by broken glass so uh. I probably shouldn’t move until it’s swept up,” he says a little helplessly. “And you didn’t turn my life upside down, Tony, I haven’t been this happy in… I don’t know how long and you’re at least partially responsible for that. Next time talk to me though, would you? I would greatly appreciate that. I know you’re the ‘go big or go home’ type but that doesn’t need to involve spending oodles of money on me.” Tony, thankfully, looks a little less guilty after that.

*

He and Tony were curled up in his bed watching some movie that Tony liked; personally Steve hadn’t cared because he was tired and more concerned with keeping Tony happy. “I mentioned that aromantic thing to Pepper,” he says quietly.

“Yeah? What’d she say,” he asks. He was curious as to what the woman would think, on one hand she knew Tony quite well and he would assume support but on the other hand there was an absolute lack of support of Tony’s relationship with him. She had good reasons, yes, but she hadn’t gone about it well.

“She said that that made perfect sense and that was why she was so concerned about you. Why would a guy who’s never been interested in romantic relationships as a whole suddenly find himself in one and head over heels in love? Didn’t add up. Rhodey said it make sense too, which basically called everything I feel for you into question because is it romantic love? I don’t know, I don’t even know what that’s supposed to look like; it isn’t like I had model parents, or friends for that matter. Rhodey and Pep are both far more interested in career goals than marriage. So now I have no idea what kind of love this is and I’m very confused and very frustrated,” he says, frowning at the television screen like it had the answers to his problems. They were watching some bad eighties action flick, it definitely didn’t have the answers to his problems.

“It doesn’t really matter, at least not for the purposes of our relationship,” Steve says, unconcerned.

Tony shifts, drawing Steve’s full attention as he blinks a few times to wake himself up more. “But like… it does, don’t you want me to like romantically love you or whatever?” he asks.

“I don’t care how you love me, just that you do, and you do so crisis averted,” he says.

The look on Tony’s face would have been funny if not for the seriousness of the situation. He blinks rapidly and shakes his head a bit, looking vaguely like Dummy did when the bot got an order it didn’t understand. He wondered who started that expression first, Tony or the bot. “Your liberalism confuses and confounds me on the best of days but like… you _don’t_ care?” he asks, trying to take that in with what looked like little success.

“No I don’t care. Love is love, should it really matter what form it comes in?” he says logically.

“You are literally the best person ever, no seriously; most people in your situation would just assume that I couldn’t love them at all or something. Or that whatever love I did manage was like… lesser or whatever. I don’t know what kind of love this is because everyone went and fucked shit up for me but I have more of it now, if that counts,” he says.

Steve weaves his fingers through Tony’s, “it counts, of _course_ it counts,” he says meaningfully, “and people are assholes. We know that already.”

They sit for a few moments and let the movie explosions fill the silence before Tony speaks again, “you really don’t care?” he asks.

“No, I don’t,” he says, “romantic or not whatever this is we both care about each other and that’s what matters.”

“You’re too good for me,” Tony murmurs into his hair, kissing the top of his head.

“Pretty sure the general public still thinks you’re too good for me, and they’re right. You bought me a fucking apartment and if everyone I lived with is currently in there with room for me left over ‘apartment’ probably isn’t the right term,” he says.

“People are fucking idiots, and assholes, we’ve established that. And technically its two floors of a secured building,” Tony admits somewhat hesitantly.

“Tony! You can’t just _buy_ two floors of a building… wait, you buy entire floors of buildings?” he asks, frowning. He didn’t know that and honestly he could have done without the knowledge.

“We’ve already established that money can buy whatever you want, including a plane full of strippers. They were all very nice, and when I passed out they would cover me in a blanket and bring me water. They’re all doing very well now, most of them are in college, which I decided to pay for because they put up with some serious assholery on my part and it was only fair,” he says. He felt bad for the strippers, they probably only had to deal with drunken shenanigans but it was _Tony_. That was probably a whole new job unto itself, which he supposed is what Pepper was around for. That and actually making sure paperwork got done so SI could run properly. He was sure Tony could run things himself but without Pepper things would probably be considerably more disorganized he was sure. Pepper was like Phil Coulson level efficient and that was almost frightening.

“That’s… oddly sweet of you. Though with a recommendation from you they probably could have gone pro,” he says. Who wouldn’t hire Tony Stark’s strippers? That alone was a guarantee for business.

“As far as I’m concerned they were already pros. After having a couple of them try to teach me how to pole dance and spending that time cling to the pole like a fucking koala bear and trying not to fall on my head, unsuccessfully, I have a new appreciation for the job. How the hell people manage to strip without looking like a bunch of gross writhing bodies I have no clue but that is some talent,” he says, sounding genuinely impressed with that. Steve had always wondered about that too, the sweating thing, did they work it into the routine? How did pole dancers not fall off the pole? The _shoes_. He’d die working that job.

“Mmm. Clint took a pole dancing class once, apparently he was a natural but we have yet to see the evidence,” he says. It wouldn’t surprise him though; Clint was the master of developing weirdly specific and useless talents, like archery, and eating twenty Taco Bell tacos without getting the shits.

“Bastard. I didn’t think stripping was that hard and I was sorely mistaken, and that’s without the pole. You throw that in there and now it’s fucking witchcraft or something. People were not meant to fling themselves around on poles and yet pole dancers manage. Amazing,” he says as if he didn’t do impossible things on a regular basis.

“Kind of always wanted to take a pole dancing class just because, I mean I’d be terrible at it, but it would be fun to drag Clint so I can see this supposed talent,” he says. The thought of Clint managing to actually stage a routine that was even remotely sexy was impossible for him to imagine, but in all fairness that’s because he can’t imagine Clint pole dancing unironically. With a rose in his mouth because it was _Clint_.

“I will literally pay you. Please,” Tony says, looking far too hopeful and bouncing in his seat.

“Oh my god, you’re such a savage. I’ll consider it,” he says, rolling his eyes fondly.

“If you could consider saying ‘yes’ to that that’d be great,” Tony says, grinning.

*

Natasha squeals in excitement and he cracks an eye open to properly glare at her for interrupting his sleep. “I am _honored_ ,” she says dramatically as if she was accepting some award, “to be accepting my rightful place as the first person you have been accused of cheating on Tony with. Though I’ve been seen with Tony just as much as you, so the media isn’t sure who’s cheating with me. Is it you? Is it Tony? Or,” she says and leans forward dramatically, “are _we all together_!”

He groans and pulls his blanket over his head, “god, you’re dating Bucky! Didn’t Christine say that?” he mumbles.

“Yeah, but she didn’t put pictures of us in her article. No one knows who I am outside of the ‘radiant redhead’ persona. Personally I approve, I am radiant,” she says, grinning happily and fluffing her hair.

God, she actually did look radiant and he probably looked like something that belonged in a bad B horror movie. “Great,” he mumbles, “we’re having an affair, I’m sure Bucky will react well to that.”

“Oh no, you already saw that?” Tony asks from behind him so he turns, glaring at Tony over the top of his blanket and earning a laugh. “You look like a very mad dandelion floof,” he says fondly, smiling at him. Steve narrows his eyes because he did not want to look like a mad dandelion floof, damnit. He could feel his hair sticking up at like seven different angles though so he probably did look like a pissed off flower.

“I am so excited to be the first person that everyone thinks you two are fucking around on each other with,” Natasha says, looking pleased with herself.

“That makes one of us,” Steve mutters, resigning himself to actually having to wake up even though he didn’t want to. He hated planes, he decided, because they were uncomfortable and annoying.

“You okay?” Tony asks, looking concerned.

“My hair looks like it ate your R and D department but other than that I’m fine,” he says and rubs his eyes, “and tired.”

“We’ll be home soon,” Tony says, walking over and smoothing his hair out some. He ignores the feeling that Tony is a mother cat grooming him because that was very weird and obviously the product of his sleep addled brain.

“Yeah,” Steve mumbles, “then I guess I get to see this magical apartment that all of my friends have felt compelled to send me updates about now that they know I know about it,” he says, looking at Natasha. She was conveniently absorbed in whatever was on her phone now though so she was clearly content ignoring him.

“In their defense it is a pretty sweet deal,” Tony says. Yeah, _too_ sweet of a deal, that was the problem. Tony had enough problems thinking that his money was all he was worth; he didn’t need to encourage that if he could help it. He was actually surprised Tony hadn’t picked up on that card he gave Steve conveniently not being used.

“We’ll see,” he says. He was sort of stuck with the situation whether he liked it or not because he couldn’t afford to move but he doesn’t tell Tony that because he doesn’t want Tony to feel bad.

Natasha lets out another squeal, “ohh now Twitter is involved in our _scandalous_ life!” she says excitedly, bouncing in her seat.

Steve groans and tries his best to hide his head under his blanket. He wasn’t very successful because Tony’s fingers were still in his hair and when did that start feeling so pleasant? “Bucky sent an irritated tweet informing people that no, I am not with you or Tony, I am with him. People are going nuts its great!” she says.

“Didn’t really take you for the attention loving type, or the type that likes drama,” Tony says, frowning.

“You aren’t wrong. I do, however, _love_ to stir shit up and watch people go just to see what happens. Drama is far more fun when you aren’t involved, I agree, but I can work with this. Besides, as soon as Steve is seen with someone else in a vaguely romantic position people will latch onto that,” she points out, furiously tapping the screen of her phone. He didn’t know what she was doing and frankly he was happy never knowing because this was _Natasha_ , by the time the day was out people would be arguing about penguins or something because she was a master manipulator. Thankfully she didn’t use her powers for evil most of the time.

“You have some weird friends,” Tony says to Steve, gently massaging his scalp.

“So do you,” he points out, “they let you wear chickens on your head.”

Natasha looks up from her phone, “you remember that? Where did this chicken thing even come from?” she asks, frowning at them.

“I’ll find evidence one day and you’ll understand,” he says vaguely and Tony laughs, clearly thinking such a thing was impossible.

*

When they did get back to New York Steve is suddenly thankful that Tony thought to move him because the media spectacle that surrounded his supposed affair with Nat had swelled to a point where leaving his house would probably be a safety issue. Thankfully people didn’t seem to know he had moved, or where he was to begin with, so for now they couldn’t hunt him down. “Guess I’m keeping the apartment,” he says, scrolling through some pretty insane tweets about him. “You’d think people would be familiar with the ‘significant other is cheating!!!!!’ routine that never ends up being true,” he says.

“You’d think,” Natasha says, “but people are endlessly stupid. I am fond of the rumors about us _both_ being sex robots for Tony’s use because that one is creative and fun, if a little messed up.” Natasha says. She had some weird ideas about what constituted as entertainment.

“Pepper’s on it,” Tony says, sounding exhausted, “and Christine probably has some sort of spin planned. Hopefully they don’t accidentally contradict each other because there is no way Pep would ever voluntarily talk to Christine.” Steve wanted to know more about that, exactly, because he was curious but he kept his questions to himself for now.

“Well I started at least five more rumors so good luck with that,” Natasha says, grinning, “including indulging that sex robot one.”

“Seriously, Nat?” he asks.

“What? I’ve always wanted to respond to media rumors with more media rumors, I also spread a rumor that I’m a lesbian, a witch, a time traveler, and Pepper and Tony’s secret love child.” She looks impressed with herself and Tony snorts at that last one.

“Bet people would _love_ to think that you’re secretly mine and Pepper’s kid,” he says, “the red hair all but confirms it. Now there are going to be incest rumors too, thanks for that,” Tony says, wrinkling his nose at Natasha.

“You’re welcome,” she chirps happily.

“Did, at any point, you mention you’re dating Bucky? Because I feel like that should have been the priority,” he says. Poor Bucky, his best friend and girlfriend go to Italy and come back supposedly sleeping together. He’d know that wasn’t true at all but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t bother him some; it would bother Steve if the situation was reversed.

“Duh, but people think me being Tony’s and Pepper’s robot sex child is much more fun,” she says.

Tony pinches his nose at that, “I can’t believe that people would seriously believe that shit,” he says, “I am _so_ sorry.”

Why, exactly, Tony looked so guilty for people being assholes when that was completely out of his control Steve had no idea. “It isn’t your fault, and if Natasha would stop making it worse that would be lovely,” he says, giving her a pointed look.

She looks up from her phone, “I just got people believing Bucky’s a sex robot too, this is fun,” she says, smiling coyly.

“Bucky’s asexual, that would defeat the purpose of being a sex robot. I mean if you’re created for the sole purpose of sex you’d think you’d get a sexual attraction code, or an enjoy sex code or something, poor Bucky doesn’t get either,” Steve points out. Bucky was under the impression that sex was not his thing, and it was messy. Clint and Phil decided that they didn’t agree, but only because they wanted to test weird sex stuff out for ‘science’. Sam just straight up liked sex, lack of sexual attraction be damned.

Natasha looks out the window and sighs longingly, “he is free from the confines of his code, able to explore the world outside of his objectified state. He experiences a taste for life that we never will,” she says dramatically.

“Oh my fucking god,” Tony mumbles, “I am putting an end to this fucking sex robot thing Jesus Christ.” He pulls out his phone and starts tapping the screen. Natasha does the same and Steve watches as the Twitter reviews change from generally negative to generally positive with a dash of fucking weird on the side. At least people seemed content to believe that neither Steve nor Tony were having an affair with Natasha and that none of them were sex robots that Tony made. Actually Tony’s offense that he would have to make a sex robot was kind of hilarious.

Bucky throws his own tweet in the mix, apparently having thought along the same lines as Steve because he points out the redundancy of an asexual sex robot. Natasha and Tony quickly retweet it though probably for different purposes. He sits back in the car and ignores the two of them in favor of looking out the window to see where, exactly, they were going. It wasn’t surprising, exactly, when they end up in a far more expensive neighborhood than his previous home had been in but he had been hoping Tony had at least had the sense to not spend more than strictly necessary. He quickly gathered Tony had no fucking clue what that number even was.

“Natasha stop spreading rumors,” Tony says, frowning at his phone, “you were born almost before I hit puberty, I can’t be your father.”

Steve takes in a long, steady breath and pulls out his phone, calling Bucky. “Steve, you okay?” Bucky asks, answering right away.

“There are a million things that have happened in the last month that I never saw coming Bucky, and I am at my wits end,” he says, well aware that he was being melodramatic. “I can handle the weird obsession the press now has with me, I hate Christine with a passion but I can suck it up for Tony, and I can even handle the absurdity of people thinking I’m sleeping with Natasha. But your girlfriend spreading rumors that my boyfriend fathered her is beyond my capacity of things I feel like I should have to put up with. I deeply encourage you to do something about this,” he says and hangs up.

Tony squints at him for a moment, “what do you think Bucky could possibly do to stop this?” he asks.

“We have our methods,” Steve says, like Phil conditioning Clint. Everyone knew that if they wanted Bucky to do something they threatened Steve, if they wanted Steve to do something they threatened him with dish duty, and if they wanted Peter to do something they got Gamora to glare. None of them knew why Gamora was so frightening to Peter because she had been nothing but pleasant but apparently there was an incident and now he listened to her no matter what. Her and Drax but Drax usually wasn’t immediately available the way Gamora was.

“Oh come on!” Natasha says, looking torn, “he told me he’d let me get a black widow if I stopped spreading rumors,” she says sadly.

“The fuck you are, I’m not dying because you have a deadly pet,” he says, “Bucky’s bargaining chip sucks.” Of course that’s when Bucky sends him a text telling him he’d do laundry for the next ever if he let Nat have a black widow and that was just too good to pass up. He was weak, he sold out and if he died from a black widow bite he’d embrace the sweet sting of death because never doing laundry again was worth it. Or at least as long as he lived with Bucky, but to be fair they hadn’t lived apart, even when they had technically lived in separate spaces, since they had ventured out on their own and he couldn’t really imagine living without Bucky so probably forever. “You can have a black widow,” he says somewhat grudgingly.

Nat looks ecstatic, “I know a guy. I’m getting one tomorrow,” she says happily, tapping away at the screen of her phone. Tony watches the exchange in confusion but chooses wisely to not ask questions.

*

The apartment, if it could be called that, was _huge_. It sort of looked like one of those loft apartments that artsy people were supposed to have and he wondered if that was why Tony had picked this place in particular, because he was an artist. He would use that in the loosest of terms, he hardly did anything artsy anymore because he just didn’t have time but at least here he would have the space, if he felt like it.

He wants to tell Tony that this was way overboard but he doesn’t want to hurt his feelings either, so he settles for something in between. “This is great,” he says, gesturing around, “but grand gestures don’t always need to have price tags so large I don’t even want to know about them. You could always just plan a cute date or something.” Tony was a genius; Steve was certain he could figure something out.

Tony snorts, “I literally have no dating experience, how am I supposed to come up with a good idea?” he asks.

Steve sighs, stepping in closer and placing his hands on Tony’s hips, brushing his thumbs across his hip bones. “You’re a genius, Tony, I’m sure you can come up with something. Watch a romcom or two,” he suggests.

“You hate romcoms,” Tony says and Steve smiles because yeah he so did but he hadn’t thought Tony knew that.

“They occasionally have cute date ideas. And even if they don’t you regularly come up with things that are almost completely original in design, I’m sure you can plan a night out that doesn’t cost a million dollars,” he says. He had faith in Tony’s creative ability, he was considerably creative in every other area of his life he was certainly capable of expressing emotion without copious amounts of money.

Tony grins and Steve kicks himself immediately for the wording because he knew _exactly_ where Tony was going to go with that. “Oh I can plan something that doesn’t cost a _million_ dollars,” Tony says, going exactly where Steve thought he’d go.

He sighs, “you know what I meant, Tony. Try something personal, like your lab. That was the moment I knew for sure that I loved you,” he says because that had been a great idea even if it was spur of the moment.

Tony wrinkles his nose, “that wasn’t planned,” he says, “I don’t really know how to recreate those results.”

“The plus side is that the possibilities are endless,” he says, earning another nose wrinkle from Tony.

“You go first,” he says and Steve snorts.

“Fine, clear your schedule on Saturday,” he says. Hopefully he was able to talk Sam, Peggy, and Wanda into his plans too because if he wasn’t successful there he was going to have to make new plans. Wanda would be the hardest to convince but she did like him quite a bit, or at least before he started dating Tony. He hoped that she didn’t hate him now though he would understand if she did, at least on some level.


	13. Chapter 13

Sam and Peggy had been happy to come over, Wanda? A little less so. But she didn’t hate him, not yet, so there was that at least. “You have a doorman,” Sam says as soon as he steps out of the elevator, “that’s fucking _awesome_.”

“The buildings security is necessary for Steve’s safety given the current mess of the media,” Wanda points out, looking generally pissed off. She had natural bitch face though so he didn’t hold her looking annoyed with everything against her.

“Total buzz kill,” Sam says, shaking his head. He ditches his shoes by the door and starts wandering around, touching everything he came into contact with because Sam is a very tactile person. He was also considerably excitable and an absolute sweetheart unless pissed off, then he was a force to be reckoned with.

“Is that furniture new?” Peggy asks, squinting at the couch and wandering further in. Sam had already made it to the couch and at Peggy’s mention he throws himself on it and lets out a long groan that sounded far too sexual for couch flopping.

“Oh my god this is _glorious_ ,” he says into the couch cushions, “does Tony have any billionaire friends looking for a life partner? Because I’d sell the fuck out for this couch alone,” he says.

Wanda glares at him for that and Peggy snorts, declaring that the couch couldn’t possibly be that good. She nearly sits on Sam’s head in the process of testing it but she too lets out a long far too sexual groan, “oh my god, _yes_ ,” she says, wiggling around to get more comfortable.

“You people are weak,” Wanda mumbles, looking around skeptically. “Is this what you want?” she asks him and the question throws him for a moment because it wasn’t what he was expecting.

He also has no clue how to answer that because he wasn’t actually sure if this is what he wanted. Sam and Peggy look over when the silence becomes too prolonged, also interested in his answer. Wanda waits patiently for a response, seemingly knowing that he needed time to think that over. “I… I want Tony, but all of this?” he waves his hand around, “I don’t need this, or even have an interest in it really,” he says.

Wanda nods seriously, considering his answer, “then why has Stark even bothered with all this?” she asks. Sometimes he forgot how intense Wanda could be, mostly because she tended not to be all that intense with him.

To make matters worse her question didn’t exactly have a simple answer he could just hand out. “Because money is the only way Tony knows how to show affection,” he says finally, not knowing how to put that without airing all of Tony’s mental health problems. And there was a surprising abundance of those. Money wasn’t the only way Tony _did_ show affection but he was under the impression that if it wasn’t on some massive grand scale it simply didn’t matter. His entire life revolved around that, really, especially with his tech and he was pretty damn sure that was a lesson Howard taught him. Too bad Howard was dead because Steve would have _loved_ to meet the guy.

“Hmm,” Wanda says, “if he could be affectionate towards my student debts that would be lovely,” she says. She was still tense, still skeptical and he got why. It was hard to let go of the anger at someone who, for all intents and purposes, was personally responsible for your family’s death. Even if Tony didn’t have anything to do with that, not really, it was Obadiah that sold weapons to the people that decimated Wanda’s home. But Tony made the weapons and he was the one she had blamed for so long. She was starting to move past that but he doubted that someone she knew considerably well suddenly dating the guy would be at all helpful, especially considering they were all under the impression that Tony was the literal devil before all this started.

“I’m sure if you mentioned it to him he’d actually follow through. He has a flair for the dramatic and a tendency to go overboard on even the simplest of things. Hence having an apartment I didn’t ask for because I mentioned my room was drafty once,” he says because Natasha had told him where, exactly, Tony got this insane idea. It was sweet, really, because Tony hadn’t wanted his health issues to be aggravated by crappy living conditions but he wasn’t suffering where he was, not really. There were no roaches or bedbugs so as far as he was concerned he had found the holy fucking grail.

Sam snorts, “seriously? Maybe he’ll get cuddly with my student debts too,” he says, grinning.

Steve, however, was not impressed, “how about no. Tony is not getting cuddly with anyone’s student debts,” he says, hoping that he’d be able to manage to keep Tony out of _his_ student debts. Now that he thought about it he’s mentioned the debt a few times, Tony better not take that as a cue to pay them all off because he could do that himself, thank Tony very much.

“Fine, I’ve got a few charities he can cuddle up to,” Sam says without missing a beat because he was an absolute asshole.

“ _Sam_ ,” he says, hands on his hips but Sam doesn’t look guilty whatsoever. Wanda snorts at the two of them and they fall back into their usual dynamic of Sam and Steve bickering, Wanda throwing her opinion in there every once and awhile, and Peggy telling them all to stuff it. It was familiar and frankly wanted territory. With some much up in their air at the moment it was nice to have something remain the same, even if it was Sam being an asshole.

“So I’m assuming you invited us here for a reason,” Wanda says after a while, always the shrewd one.

“Total buzzkill,” Sam says, shaking his head at her as she gave him confused looks. In Wanda’s defense she was a bit emotionally constipated and didn’t much care for social norms, so she didn’t _mean_ to be a total buzzkill.

“She isn’t wrong, exactly,” Steve says, earning mock offended gasps from Sam and Peggy, “what? You should have seen that coming. Honestly I dread to think of what stories the media will make up about you guys though, I’ll probably be running a harem by the end of the day,” he says, irritated.

“Oh my god, Natasha responding to rumors that she was sleeping with you and Stark by making more rumors that she was sleeping with you and Stark though, _golden_ ,” Sam says, looking enthused. Oh yeah, she and Bucky thought it was _hilarious_ and were now using catfishing the media as some sort of weird bonding thing. He hadn’t expected Bucky to be so blasé about the whole thing but apparently he had laughed for a solid two hours over the asexual sex robot thing.

“Very Natasha,” he agrees, “but that isn’t why I asked you guys to come over, I mean aside from regular hanging out. So uh, you know how I occasionally volunteer with you guys at that soup kitchen? Mind if I bring Tony?” he asks and immediately everyone looks at Wanda. That was probably in part because she was one of the people who ran it and also because she hated Tony with a passion.

She looks amused though, “a billionaire feeding the homeless? Oh I have _got_ to see that in action,” she says, snickering. Steve relaxes because he hadn’t been expecting her to agree so easily but he was happy that she had. Besides, Tony could use some socialization outside of his privileged bubble and this was a great opportunity.

*

Bucky lets out a loud squawk so Natasha and Steve stick their heads out of the kitchen to find Bucky staring at Tony in horror, eyes wide and hands buried in his hair. Tony was sitting on the floor of the living room with Bucky’s arm… well, what was Bucky’s arm, spread out around him mumbling under his breath. Bucky lets out another pained noise but takes a deep breath, “Steve, of all the things I thought I would never say _ever_ ‘tell your boyfriend to stop ripping my arm apart’ is at the top of the list,” he says.

“Okay you know what, I had to tell you to tell your girlfriend to stop spreading rumors that my boyfriend fathered her, I think I win. And to make matters worse I’m now living with a deadly spider, something that no one should keep as a pet ever,” he says, “and Tony, what are you doing?” he asks.

His words don’t really go through because Tony held considerably strange work habits and generally became completely absorbed in his work until he was either done or his body just sort of stopped working. Steve got that, when he used to do paint or draw more than never he would do the same thing, at one point Bucky got worried because he learned to draw in his sleep. Honestly it looked like garbage but it was still a sweet talent, Bucky’s worry aside. “Five more minutes, Pep, this thing is horrible. Makes no sense, stupid materials, fucking useless,” he mumbles under his breath, examining something new and wrinkling his nose at it in distaste.

“Don’t I know it Stark, that’s my _arm_ ,” Bucky says, waving his singular arm around. Natasha starts laughing and he couldn’t help but join in because Bucky looked so lost as to what to do here.

This, at least, seems to pull Tony from his work space and he blinks for a moment, “umm,” he says upon seeing Bucky glaring at him. He looks back to the remains of the arm and makes an irritated noise, “found the problem, Hammer tech,” he says, holding up some piece of tech that apparently had meaning.

“Great. Now give me my arm back,” Bucky says and he probably would have crossed his arms for emphasis but he currently only had one so he planted it on his hip instead.

Tony looks a mix between offended and horrified, “no! I can’t let you suffer with this thing, it’s terrible! Honestly a dog could build something more efficient than whatever the fuck this is supposed to be,” he says, dropping the supposed Hammer tech back into the pile.

“Fine, then build me a better arm and in the meantime give that one back,” Bucky says, “I can’t believe I am having this conversation.”

“You’re better off without an arm, this is pretty much only for show, the way it moves is freakishly inefficient. Do these people not care about amputees? Clearly not, come by my lab tomorrow I have to run like six hundred tests so I can make it look natural,” Tony says and trails off, running calculations in his head.

Bucky gives Steve a look but he shrugs, what the hell was he supposed to do? “If this ends in disaster I’m blaming you,” Bucky warns, “but fine. I’m curious about your supposed genius,” he says.

“My _supposed_ genius? Pretty sure that’s indisputable at this point,” Tony points out.

“You decided to rip an amputee’s prosthetic arm apart out of curiosity, I’d hardly call that a genius move,” Bucky says, deadpan.

Tony looks at the pile of parts, “that was an admittedly bad decision made in haste on my part. But in my defense I can build something better blindfolded with no fingers so it isn’t like I can’t give you a replacement,” he says.

“Bucky you can’t judge Tony for his bad decisions, you knew full well knew that I wouldn’t be comfortable with this apartment thing and you still followed through. Plus you’re getting a new and better arm out of the deal and I got labeled a gold digger by like eleven million people for a decision I had nothing to do with. Shower pressure _is_ great though so I mean I guess I’m still winning,” he says. Clint had called it a human car wash and it was totally accurate, and a total waste of water, but _human car wash_. He was weak, he’d admit it, the awesome shower pressure is basically why he agreed to keep this place. That, and the security because he now actually needed it. He’d shudder to think of what would have happened to him or anyone else he lived with if he still lived where he was; they already got robbed pretty regularly.

“It was _one_ time and I knew you’d come around when you saw the shower. Plus you have room to do art things!” he says, trying his best to make reasons that weren’t selfish as to why he followed through with Tony’s insane plans.

“You wanted a bigger room and no rent,” he says bluntly.

“That too,” Bucky says, looking away guiltily.

“Clint got a Roomba, Peter and Gamora no longer have to share a bed, and I finally got my black widow, we’re all happy,” Natasha says in her own defense.

“You guys are assholes; you could have at least asked me before you decided to move without me,” he says, “and then use Clint getting a _Roomba_ as an excuse to do it. Phil was going to get him a Roomba for Christmas anyways because it went along with his plans to make Clint cleaner and Clint would genuinely love a Roomba.” Clint was fucking weird but he did actually love the vacuum dearly.

“You would have said no so we did it the asshole sneaky way and then let you come to the proper conclusion that we were right the whole time. Plus Tony made a point about security, we did get robbed like at least once a week and with your sudden fame staying where we were actually was pretty unsafe,” Natasha says and Steve sighs because yeah, she was right, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

“At least there are no more cold showers,” he mumbles. Tony looks horrified and Steve felt that, really, because cold showers were the _worst_ and if he never had to do that again it would be too soon.

“Great, so Steve’s still salty about the apartment that we all love, including him, but can we go back to my left arm being savagely ripped apart by mad genius?” Bucky asks, tapping his foot.

*

Wanda, thankfully, didn’t look too upset about having to spend a whole morning with Tony and when Steve asked to make sure she was alright with this she had nodded, telling him that she was working through her issues and this happened to be a convenient opportunity. He had no clue what that meant but Sam and Peggy show up before he can ask, bickering about some fandom related thing Steve and Wanda had no interest in. Eventually they decide to agree to disagree before turning to Steve, “so, when’s your rich boy showing up?” Sam asks, leaning against the counter.

“Any time now,” Steve says, hoping to hell that Tony didn’t decide he was going to be fashionably late as usual. Thankfully whatever deity might be out there was rooting for him because Tony stumbles in on time, if a bit loudly, telling Pepper that he was not going to be dealing with the Board today, or ever if he could help it. Sam smirks, shaking his head and Peggy rolls her eyes. Wanda, he notices, has fled the scene already and he’d like to ask if she was alright but he should probably deal with Tony first.

“Sorry,” Tony says, shoving his phone in his pocket, “the Board is freaking out over Hammer releasing some new product which doesn’t even make sense because everyone knows his stuff is shit but whatever. So now they think we’re behind, which we aren’t, technologically speaking we’re way ahead even if I didn’t have something new, so they’re causing problems. This happens at least twice every year and you’d think they would learn that stocks will be just fine but no, they have to go and harass me on a Saturday morning. Anyways I made it on time so that’s nice, hey everyone,” he says, waving awkwardly before hurrying over to Steve. It was always a strange sight, self-conscious Tony, which was obviously what Sam and Peggy were currently thinking if their traded looks of confusion were any indication.

Sam and Peggy accept Tony’s entrance at least as much as they need to and Steve explains what they were doing, exactly. Poor Tony proves to be woefully terrible at all things feeding homeless much to Sam’s absolute delight. Wanda appears and disappears frequently and Steve fields cleaning up Tony’s very literal messes. Peggy commends him on his ability to keep up because she didn’t think she could, but then he was used to fielding Clint’s messes too. Phil would probably do a better job but Phil is frighteningly efficient. At least Sam was having fun teasing Tony, which he took surprisingly well but Tony probably knew he was terrible with food unless he was eating it. He proved to be far more effective at talking to homeless people than feeding them.

Wanda reappears when Tony disappears off to go talk to people because he was a social creature at heart. Sometimes Steve got exhausted watching him but Tony was aggressively extroverted and he had always been pretty introverted, it was pretty natural to find Tony’s social habits exhausting. “They seem to like him,” he says, nodding to the people currently surrounding Tony.

“Sure they do, he has a lot of natural energy,” Steve says. It was easy to forget that Tony had such a powerful personality when you spent a lot of time with him, plus it helped that Steve had a powerful personality too if his friends were to be believed. He had paid attention to people since Natasha told him that people listened to him, that people who spoke out against him tended to be those that were angry that Steve had support. His conclusions were that she was right, at least partially. Whenever he said something that some paparazzi asshole caught he swore it became popular within seconds and a lot of people took him seriously. There were plenty others, Rumlow for example, who outright rejected his views but people objected strongly to that for the most part. It was weird having that much influence over a group of people and he had no clue how Tony was so at ease with so much attention all the time.

On the plus side he and his friends were getting damn good at avoiding the paparazzi, plus Bucky and Natasha were finally using their media trolling powers for good by handing out incorrect tips to Steve’s location. Sam would have a fucking ball with that if he ever got the chance to screw with the media. Peggy would probably do a lot of punching; she wasn’t at all fond of people looking when she didn’t give them permission to.

“He does,” Wanda agrees, “I thought it was fictional, the energy people described, but I feel oddly drawn to him.” She tilts her head to the side and squints at him as if that would help her figure out her feelings.

“I know,” Steve says because he had been drawn to Tony before he had even seen the guy. His voice alone had pulled Steve in with his easy confidence and casual conversation, like he was completely at ease with himself and the odd start to their banter. He knew now that there was more to it than that but he still felt drawn to Tony, pulled in by almost everything about him. His generosity, his intelligence, the way he asked questions, interacted with everything and everyone around him, the way he saw the world. Tony Stark didn’t do anything small and it was easy to get caught up in it, he’d also bet it was easy to get swallowed up by it too and that was probably why Tony had so few friends. Even if he wasn’t famous, which came with its own complications, living in Tony’s shadow wouldn’t be easy. It wasn’t like he meant to overpower the room, draw the attention of everyone in it, and he was willing to bet that a lot of people didn’t like the idea of playing second fiddle to Tony Stark. Obadiah Stane sure hadn’t.

“He looks at you the same way Clint looks at tacos,” Wanda says, “must be love.”

Steve glares at her, “don’t cheapen our relationship by comparing it to Taco Bell tacos, no one gets diarrhea from us,” he says. Peggy and Sam burst out laughing and Wanda joins in a moment later, shaking her head.

“Seriously though, I’ve always wanted someone to look at me like Clint looks at tacos, it’s like he’s seen his soul mate for the first time every time he gets Taco Bell. Don’t tell Phil I said that,” she says, “but Tony looks at you like that, like you’re the greatest thing he’s ever seen. It’s… human,” she says, frowning as if she hadn’t been expecting that. Maybe she hadn’t, she had spent so long constructing him as the monster that killed her family, he doubted he’d see Tony as human if he were in her situation.

“I maintain that comparing our relationship to Taco Bell cheapens the experience,” Steve says, turning to find Tony snickering on the other side of the table they were currently standing behind.

“Taco Bell is great and all guys, but no one gets diarrhea from us,” Tony says.

“That’s what Steve said,” Wanda says, looking surprised.

“Great minds think alike,” Tony says before disappearing to go talk to someone else.

*

“So my general consensus from talking to the group of homeless people that showed up is that we basically criminalize the poor for being poor,” Tony says.

“I could have told you that,” Steve says, linking his fingers with Tony’s.

“Aww. I thought I thought of something new and shiny to contribute,” he says, sounding vaguely disappointed.

“Don’t feel too bad, I’ve been into this for years, I have a huge wealth of knowledge you don’t. Some of that is knowledge you’d never be able to get either, not authentically. It’d be like expecting me to understand your engineering skills right off the bat, it makes no sense,” he says.

Tony wrinkles his nose, “but no one understands my stuff, lots of people understand social justice concepts,” he says.

“Not straight away, and arguably we’ll never get the full picture. The problem with brining attention to the problems of certain groups is that you always end up excluding someone else, be that a whole other group or a group within the initial group you started with. You can’t talk about everyone all at once, that’s why there’s so many different groups fighting for different rights,” Steve says. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been there himself, learning, relearning, unlearning, the whole bit. It was difficult work but then Tony was used to being able to do difficult things without any issues right away so maybe that was why he was having a hard time accepting that he wasn’t grasping all of the concepts Steve knew immediately.

He sighs and Steve suspects he was right about Ton being irritated that he wasn’t able to do this particular difficult thing right away. “Fine, that sucks but okay. Feeding homeless people was a surprisingly fun activity though, well, maybe not the feeding part but the talking part was great,” Tony says, “I can see why you’d enjoy it.” Steve nods though he and Tony got vastly different things from the experience. That was unsurprising though, considering how different they were on any given occasion. And at least everyone seemed to take kindly to Tony though Steve suspected that was because Tony seemed to know well enough to tread lightly. It was a new skill for Tony, who had a habit of running over everyone in his path without even realizing it. Bad habits of those with strong personalities who also had a difficult time holding back.

“I used to do stuff like this all the time,” he says and Tony immediately looks guilty, “that wasn’t meant to make you feel bad. Grad school got in the way long before you came along, but people going to insane lengths to snap my picture hasn’t made things easier,” he says. Not that that was Tony’s fault either, people went to even crazier lengths to snap his picture. “The point of this was to share an experience with you that is important to me, something that helped contribute to who I am today, like your lab,” he says.

Tony ducks his head for a moment before smiling brightly like he had in Italy when Steve had finally got him to catch on that he was drawing Tony, not the shrub behind his head and Steve smiles too. It was something of a rare occasion that Tony smiled like this; he kept his real emotions to himself so much of the time that it couldn’t possibly be healthy. He doesn’t say anything about it though, instead he decides to shift the attention back to the previous subject of the paparazzi, “you haven’t lived until someone has crawled up a hotel garbage chute to try and get a picture of you,” he says. He lets Tony change the subject because it made him more comfortable to keep his emotions to himself and Steve understood why.

“Are you serious?” Steve asks because he would assume even the paparazzi has _some_ limits.

“Yeah and it wasn’t even the paparazzi, it was some guy named Gary that is weirdly obsessed with me. Remember hair guy? Hair guy was Gary. Also toenails, and one time he tried to donate blood which is… one if the fucking creepiest things I have ever had happen but he was at least trying to be nice I guess,” Tony says, wrinkling his nose.

“That is supremely fucked up,” Steve says, hoping he never ended up with nutty fans that send him toenail clippings and blood donations.

“Don’t worry honey; people will think you’re relevant enough to send weird shit to soon. Expect love letters written in strange bodily fluids, favorite childhood toys, and on one memorable occasion a cat,” he says, grinning.

“I wouldn’t actually mind a cat, but the rest I can do without,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

*

Clint loved the Roomba, seriously, it was like his child but robotic. He liked to think that could be a bonding thing with Tony, who also loved his bots like kids but he had yet to run into the guy for more than a few seconds between running to class or Phil’s place. He seriously reconsiders his love for the vacuum though when the fucking thing _bids him goodnight_.

For a moment he stares at the Roomba in shock, “did… did you just _speak_?” he asks, sure he was fucking hallucinating or something because vacuums do not speak, even if they were awesome Roombas.

“Yes,” the vacuum says and Clint lets out a loud shriek, fleeing the room screaming. Peter must hear him because he comes flying out of the bathroom with messy hair and a tooth brush in his mouth.

“What the fuck, Barton?” he asks around the foam in his mouth.

“The Roomba speaks!” he yells, yelping when the Roomba wheels itself into the room.

“It does not, go the fuck to bed,” Peter says, rolling his eyes at him. First of all Clint asked for _clarification_ and the Roomba _spoke_ to him. Literally. This was some iRobot level shit.

“I do speak,” the Roomba says and Clint lets out another squeal, jumping onto the table, Peter following quickly behind.

“The fucking vacuum talks!” Peter yells, “how the flying fuck does the vacuum talk!”

“I would explain, but you wouldn’t understand,” the Roomba says. Peter and Clint cling to each other as the Roomba starts circling the table they were on.

“This isn’t how I imagined my death but I guess death by Roomba sounds cool,” Clint says, annoyed that he didn’t at least have some chips in his dying moments.

“Fuck you, death by Roomba sucks,” Peter says, waving a hand around but still clinging to Clint with the other.

They remain on the table for some time before Steve comes home looking flushed and happy and Clint didn’t even want to consider the reasons for that. He almost doesn’t notice them, which Clint fucking resents, but then he does and does a double take. “Why are you two standing on the table?” he asks, frowning.

“The Roomba is going to kill us!” Peter hisses, pointing at the still circling Roomba.

“Oh my god, JARVIS, are you in the fucking vacuum?” Steve asks. Peter seems to clue into something but Clint was fucking lost.

“I am glad that someone clued in sir, the batteries for the Roomba are running low but this joke has been rather amusing. Ten minutes ago they were praying,” the vacuum says, wheeling off to follow Steve through the apartment. To Clint’s intense surprise Steve ends up having a fucking _conversation_ with the vacuum.

“What the fuck?” he asks Peter because he seemed to have realized something and Clint wanted the hell in on why one of his best friends was casually talking to a _vacuum_. And he wanted an explanation as to why the fucking vacuum was talking back too.

“JARVIS, you know, Tony’s super advanced AI?” Peter says, “guess it can be installed into vacuums and he didn’t tell us and apparently the AI is smart enough to troll us.”

“I’m terrified of Roombas and I am mad because I _love_ Roombas,” Clint says, climbing off the table with as much attitude as he could muster.

“Look, I’m just glad that when I get to heaven I don’t have to tell people I was killed by a fucking Roomba,” Peter says, climbing off the table himself.

Clint snorts, “you aren’t going to heaven and you know it, Quill,” he says. Peter considers it for a moment before he nods because yeah, they were all going to hell and they knew it, accepted it even.

Steve comes back, thankfully Roomba-less, and informs them that if they received any electronics from Tony JARVIS was probably there and that the AI was highly intelligent. “JARVIS isn’t much fond of the human race though so at least we probably don’t have to worry about him taking over the world. But just so you know, JARVIS is pretty much lingering everywhere,” he says.

“Even in the shower?” Clint asks, feeling violated. He _sang_ in there and no one, not even AI, should have to be subjected to a deaf dude singing.

“Probably,” Steve says and sighs, “apparently Tony doesn’t care about privacy like a normal human.”

“We’re getting JARVIS out of the fucking shower, I sing in there and that is for my ears only,” Peter says very seriously.

“Peter, the whole damn city can hear you singing in the shower, you’re louder than Clint and Clint literally can’t check his volume. I will find out if JARVIS is actually lingering in the shower though because that’s weird,” Steve says.

Thank the god damn _lord_ because there were things someone should never have to deal with and AI in the shower was pretty high on Clint’s ‘never want to deal with’ list.


	14. Chapter 14

Bucky had no clue what to expect out of Tony or his lab aside from Steve going on and on about it and he had decided Steve was biased. When he walks in he finds Tony having what looked like a pretty serious conversation with a robot of some sort he decides that he was right to question Steve because literally what the hell. To make things stranger the bot had a paper hat on its prong-like claw that read ‘dunce’. Pepper sighs and gives him a look before disappearing to do whatever it is Pepper Potts did with her time. Probably save the world or something equally as badass.

Tony takes a few moments to notice his presence and when he does he pulls out a bunch of stuff and what looks like a half formed arm. “You built that overnight?” he asks walking over to take a closer look.

“Yeah, it’s pretty basic right now; I have to solve the tendon issue, and how to make the wrist rotate in a way that doesn’t make it look jerky and weird. And I have to figure out how to attach the hand, the jerky movement issue is a problem there too. Also your average arm has muscle tension and definition, not sure how the hell I’m going to manage that…” Tony says trailing off and giving his half formed project a look.

“Um… not sure all of that is strictly necessary,” Bucky says, frowning.

“Of course it is, it’s supposed to be an extension of your humanity, not some vaguely arm-shaped thing you attach sometimes. Anyways, tests,” he says and goes on a long convoluted rant that Bucky only half follows. Tony talks like a _lot_ and he wonders how the hell Steve gets a word in edgewise because Bucky can’t imagine them having actual conversations. Steve talked about the guy all the time, about the conversations they had, but if Tony never shut up how the hell could they talk about anything?

Finally Tony takes a damn breath and shuts up for a moment and he silently thanks whatever deity might be out there for the blessed silence. Unfortunately is doesn’t last very long, “Barnes, you’re killing me with silence here, _speak_ ,” Tony says, waving an arm around.

“Um,” he says, feeling put on the spot, “I don’t know what to say.”

“Literally anything at this point man, I hate talking to myself,” Tony says and Bucky would like to point out that the last half hour proved him wrong but he got the impression Steve would scold him for that. His general goals in life were to not disappoint Steve Rogers because he had Coulson level abilities to make you feel bad for doing so. It was like a really crappy superpower when used on him.

“Uh, I’m almost done my thesis?” he says, his voice going up at the end as if that was a question. It was not, he had some editing to do and he had to go over references and shit and then he was finally, mercifully, finished.

“Great, what does your thesis project consist of?” Tony asks, throwing in a few instructions to move in certain ways, which didn’t make much sense to Bucky but he’d ask later.

“Library graffiti as a form of student resistance to oppressive school structures,” he says and for a moment he can tell that Tony thinks he’s lying before he seems to come to the conclusion that Bucky did not pull that out of his ass.

“You… spent two years writing a thesis on library graffiti?” he asks, “that’s a real thing? Why the fuck did I go into engineering?” he mumbles to himself.

“Yeah that’s a real thing I spent the last two years on, and at least you’ll get a job,” he points out. He had no fucking clue what he was doing with his life and at this point he was just holding off the inevitable future he had as a boring adult who did boring adult things and got bugged about grandkids for the next forever. Or until Becca had kids, but he didn’t see his sister having kids ever and Natasha was incapable even if he was interested in the kid making process. Hell, even if he was interested in sex and Natasha did in fact have a functioning uterus Natasha wanted kids even less than he did. He was sure Steve would happily tell people to fuck off if he noticed Bucky was uncomfortable, or Natasha’s natural bitchface would shut them up.

“Fair enough but come on, you wrote a thesis on _library graffiti_ , that’s probably the best idea for a thesis I have ever heard. Mine was on a bunch of boring algorithms that I predicted were going to go out of date in less than a decade. I was off considerably but I didn’t know I’d invent something better three years after that so my bad. What’d you find because I am _dying_ to know how this played out on paper,” Tony says and to his credit he looks genuinely interested in the answer. That’s a surprise considering the usual reactions he got from STEM students, minus Jane, but she wasn’t an asshole.

“A lot of cutesy ‘you can do it!’ encouragements and other random bits of advice, or at least that’s what I used for the paper. To be honest I’d be more interested in writing a paper on the interesting role sexuality plays in library graffiti, like penises are _everywhere_ but no vaginas? And why is everything so heterosexual? And when the author is a women bragging about sleeping with some guy she’s usually branded a slut while guys usually get comments about possible STI’s or they’re labeled ‘gay’ in a way that suggests homophobia rather than actually being gay. It’s interesting,” he says, trailing off somewhat suddenly when he realizes he’s probably gone on about the subject for too long.

Tony doesn’t look bored or annoyed though, actually he looks more interested in the subject and that was oddly nice but weird. “What about boobs? There’s got to be a badly drawn tit somewhere, what’s that supposed to mean? I can’t believe you drew meaning out of scribbles on library walls, that is so cool,” Tony says and he believes it, Bucky can tell. He hadn’t really seen what, exactly, Steve could have possibly seen in Stark considering in a lot of ways he represented everything Steve loathed. But Tony’s genuine interest in his work, asking relevant questions, his enthusiasm, Bucky could see why Steve would be attracted to that, if a bit grudgingly.

“For the most part any drawn boobs tend to be followed up by something misogynistic, I’d assume most of the authors are male and even if they aren’t the results are the same, apparently women are sexual objects,” he says. He’d like to throw in that Tony would know plenty about that too but again, Steve would probably give him that half angry half disappointed face that could shame Peter into picking up his damn dirty underwear. “And the joy of humanities is that you can draw meaning out of just about anything, it isn’t overly difficult,” he says. All it took was a basic knowledge of sociological theories; maybe a few other sets of theories depending on the angle you take, and some critical thinking.

“For you, maybe. I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that I would never be able to draw meaning from library scribbles. Honestly Steve goes on these really long tangents about random issues _all the time_ and I haven’t even thought of half the stuff he’s saying but it all makes sense. It’s amazing how much meaning he can draw out of the simplest of things. Half the time I can’t keep up but I figure I get brownie points for at least trying to understand,” Tony says. Bucky was familiar with that fresh love thing people did, the thing where they talked about the other like the sun rose and set out of their ass. If he was honest he didn’t think Tony really cared about Steve but he couldn’t figure out the motivation Tony would have for dating him outside of improving his admittedly terrible public image in relation to anything that equal rights related. But even then there were dozens of other ways Tony could have gone about that that didn’t involve Steve, so Bucky had been stuck back at square one.

Apparently Tony’s motivations were having actual feelings for Steve and Bucky can’t help but be a little irritated with that. Sure, he’s benefited with Tony’s relationship with Steve, he did get a new apartment out of the deal, but he also had to deal with Steve prattling on and on about someone he hated two months ago. It was a weird transition and even with Steve’s insistence he still felt somewhat abandoned though he kept that mostly to himself. Steve must have felt the same way when he and Natasha started dating and he didn’t say anything so he figured maybe he should try and work out his feelings on his own. Natasha, at least, he knew was only around for the drama and boy did Stark deliver on that front. People literally thought she was his kid because of a stray tweet Natasha released into the world and she thought it was _hilarious_. To be fair so did he, even if Steve thought his bonding with Natasha over making up weird and convoluted conspiracy theories was not a good form of bonding.

That was only because he was a sex robot, though, destined to see the world through the eyes of the limited code Tony had made for him.

“Well, if it helps Steve is equally impressed with your ability to build things,” Bucky says. Personally he was a little underwhelmed, sure Tony’s lab was cool, but nothing like Steve described. Points to him for being right all along.

“Everyone is impressed with my ability to build stuff, he’s different. Most of the time I find politics boring, and lectures are fucking insufferable, but he makes politics interesting and I don’t want to stab myself when he lectures me most of the time. That’s way more impressive than this,” Tony says, holding up a hand that looked surprisingly human considering it was robotic. He was going to assume that was the hand Tony was currently having difficulty attaching without the weird movements.

“That… actually that looks pretty cool,” Bucky says somewhat grudgingly, “and trust me, Steve’s lectures eventually lose their luster.” He loved Steve, he did, but sometimes he just wanted a meaningless conversation about marshmallows, not a depressing conversation about climate change. Thank god Natasha and Clint loved and hated marshmallows as much as he did because he needed some meaningless babble sometimes.

“Yeah, pretty sure Steve’s lectures would have lost their luster long ago; I get lectured a lot, like a surprising amount of lectures. I hate lectures, I hate when people tell me what to do, it’s annoying and it reminds me of Howard so by all means I should hate Steve but like I don’t. I’m not going to spend too much time thinking about that though because my brain hurts when I do. I do math, not emotions. Also this is a crappy prototype, it’s not really all that impressive,” Tony says, tossing the hand back onto his messy desk. Steve said he had a habit of self-depreciation, which Bucky found way hard to believe, so this was his chance to see if it was true.

“Does the prototype work?” he asks. He’d leave the lecturing thing to Tony to figure out, he was sure at some point he would just want to have a quiet dinner without Steve making a big deal out of something. He’d also keep the cure, chocolate chips cookies, to himself because he secretly wanted Tony to suffer just a little and Steve was at least right to be angry about social issues.

Tony picks up the hand again, “yeah, sort of,” he says, doing something to it to make it move. Bucky is actually surprised by that and not so much that it worked, but that it looked so… _human_ when it moved.

“Sort of? What the hell were you expecting because that is _eons_ better than what I had and it’s only a hand,” he says, frowning.

He tosses the hand back into the mess on his desk and rolls his eyes, “first of all I could have glued a dog leg to your stump and it would have been an improvement, and Clint would probably like you more. Second, it isn’t that great, it was something I threw together out of scraps just to see what I could do. The movements are too jerky, the reaction time would be off, the materials aren’t right, and it can’t make a fist so for all intents and purposes it’s useless,” he says. He can tell that Tony is holding back too, there are a lot more things he thinks are wrong with the hand but he seems to want to spare Bucky.

So maybe Steve wasn’t actually lying about the self-depreciation thing. “No offense but I know a lot more about prosthetics than you by virtue of using one for the last two years and that hand alone is probably some crazy breakthrough,” he says, “even if it isn’t perfect by your standards.”

Tony makes a face, “yeah but I know more about engineering, and about my abilities. Trust me; I can do way better than this shit. So, I’ve always been a little curious but never had anyone to ask, how _does_ a person figure out they’re asexual? I mean with other sexualities it should be fairly obvious, plus I have a real frame of reference, but asexuality? No clue,” he says, titling his head to the side like he was trying to figure that out in his head.

So Steve was right about Tony having the worst conversation transitions ever too but Bucky figures he’d indulge the guy. It was always a nice test, when people asked about asexuality, because they tended to say something ignorant and then refuse to apologize because they didn’t think they were wrong. At least that was Bucky’s experience and if he was waiting for Tony to screw up, well, he wouldn’t tell Steve that. “You don’t, not really, I thought sexual attraction was made up or a hyperbole. Everyone else seems to come to some realization and mostly I had a bunch of question marks where I figured my sexuality should be,” he says, probably sounding like a total moron. For a long time he thought he was pansexual because gender seemed like a dumb thing to care about in regards to relationships. The actual ‘sex’ part of that relationship was… ehh, but he thought maybe that was just him or something.

“You thought sexual attraction was a hyperbole? How the hell did you come to that conclusion?” Tony asks but not in a way that makes him feel like he’ll need to get defensive real fucking quick. More like he was curious as to how the hell that could happen, which, fair enough.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed that our generation speaks in hyperboles all the time,” he says but Tony doesn’t look quite like he has a frame of reference for that. “Like one time Steve was doing the dishes, poor guy, and he touched a wet piece of food and his response was to say that his soul straight up vacated his meat suit for a minute, that kind of hyperbole. So I figured sexual attraction was just that, I mean there is _no way_ people are thinking about sex all the time, that’s kind of gross,” he says, frowning. He hadn’t figured out that he wasn’t actually supposed to think that, doubly so being a guy, until he mentioned it to someone other than Steve. That hadn’t been a pleasant experience because Steve had stuck up for him when he probably should have kept his mouth shut and Bucky had to kick some ass before Steve got his ass beat by some asshole with temper problems.

“Okay but touching wet food in the sink is the most disgusting experience of life, I have done it two times and I decided never again so I hired a maid. So essentially there’s no real change at puberty, then, that makes you realize that you’re like… sexually attracted to people, okay. Then how do you like… relationship?” he asks and Bucky would have been happy to set _that_ straight but Tony seems to realize he said something wrong as soon as the comment was out. “Alright, so that sounded straight up ignorant and it isn’t what I meant, not exactly. What I mean is that people use sexual attraction as a basis for finding partners, which isn’t the best method in my opinion, I have had way too many one night stands to think that’s a proper relationship starter. But you don’t have sexual attraction to guide you so what do you look for in a partner?” he asks.

Most people, in Bucky’s experience, were not that open to asking people personal questions like that but apparently Tony had no shame. He also at least tried not to be an asshole so Bucky figured he might as well be nice, even if it was only for Steve. “Aesthetic attraction is still a thing, “ he says, “so there’s that but mostly I look for someone who doesn’t have the personality equivalent of the sound a wet sponge makes when hitting the ground.”

Tony grins and laughs, “your generation is honestly the _best_ at describing feelings and emotions. I have no idea why people crap all over you guys all the time, you’re intelligent, innovative, and you put far more emphasis on friendships and other forms of love and attraction. I think that’s way better than my generation. We did a lot of coke and acid while watching horror movies and that is not as fun as it sounds. I guess that’s better than Howard’s generation, they ruined the economy so I mean doing drugs and watching horror flicks is a step up. Seriously though, the personality equivalent of the sound a wet sponge makes when hitting the ground, that is the _perfect_ description for Hammer. I love it, I’m gunna use that. And aesthetic attraction, how’s that work? You don’t have the sexual component most people attribute to aesthetic attraction so what does that look like to you?” he asks.

When people asked questions about asexuality in his experience they were really asking enough questions to conclude that asexuality isn’t real. The number of times he’s had people tell him that sexual attraction and aesthetic attraction were the same thing was staggering and it made answering people’s questions tedious and annoying most times. “This might actually be the first time I’ve had someone ask me questions about how _I_ understand asexuality instead of trying to understand asexuality through _their_ preconceived notions of love, sexuality, and human nature. It’s surprisingly refreshing,” he says and maybe, _maybe_ he might not hate Tony when they were done here.

“Aesthetic attraction is a lot simpler than people like to make it out to be, though. Like animals, you ever see some animal so cute you want to pet it, interact with it? Or a shirt you _know_ would look super cute on you so you _have_ to have it? Same thing, except with people. You see someone cute and decide you want to interact with that person, see what they’re like. It sucks when they turn out to only be pretty though,” Bucky says. Pet peeve number one was when he came across someone who was super cute and they ended up being as satisfying to talk to as cardboard was to eat.

Tony frowns at his words, “why bother to ask questions if you’re only looking to reaffirm your own opinions? That’s useless and it means you don’t learn anything and that is a shame. Also that is a super nifty description of aesthetic attraction, very precise. I have no clue why everyone bitches about labels and shit, I find them useful and honestly in basically every other situation everyone else does too. People only bitch about labels when it comes to sexuality and gender, and sometimes mental health but that actually can have some pretty crappy effects on misdiagnosed people so okay. Got any weirdly specific and accurate descriptions of love? Because I have no clue what’s going on in my own head and I probably should sort that out,” he says.

Buck raises an eyebrow but throws a few options out there, curious to see what Tony made of the new information. For the first time in a long time Bucky didn’t actually care that he was being interrogated about his sexuality, mostly because Tony was trying to understand things on _Bucky’s_ terms, not his own. As much as he would like to deny it he could see why Steve was attracted to Tony, his natural curiosity and inclination to learn and ask questions was perfectly suited for Steve’s constant lectures and discussions of social issues. They probably got along far better than Bucky would have anticipated without that knowledge, even if he still half hoped they didn’t last so he would get his best friend back.

*

Steve and Natasha had spent a good half hour trying to steal the last bag of popcorn from each other before Phil ninja’d his way in and stole the damn bag while they bickered. Clint cackled at them in the distance because he’s a bad person who needed to be stopped. “We need to end them,” Natasha says, no doubt planning one hundred and one ways to destroy Phil Coulson and Clint Barton.

“In Clint’s slight defense every time he goes to Starbucks his cup gets marked ‘cunt’ instead of ‘Clint’ so I feel like he suffers enough,” Steve says. The one time Clint’s name was spelled right he was so excited he took like forty pictures and posted them on Facebook as proof that at least one human in the human race wasn’t terrible.

“Oh please, it isn’t our fault his parents gave him a crappy name, but it _is_ his fault his boyfriend stole our popcorn,” she says, squinting in the direction Clint and Phil had taken off in, “we have to kill them.”

“Who are you killing?” someone asks from behind them and the both jump. Bucky looks amused at their plight, the asshole. Steve resents that this apartment was so large that he hadn’t heard Bucky come in from the kitchen but he doesn’t say anything about it.

“Clint and Phil stole our popcorn and Natasha is planning out-of-proportion revenge,” he says, “how’d your day with Tony go,” he asks, going for nonchalant but missing the mark considerably. He knew that Bucky didn’t really like Tony much, he felt that Tony was replacing him or something, and it would be nice if he actually approved after spending time with him.

“I got interrogated about asexuality for two hours,” Bucky says in a surly tone. He and Natasha wince out of instinct because this situation never ended well for Bucky. He would have liked to have faith in Tony but, well, people had a bad habit of assuming they knew everything and it generally led to Bucky being frustrated that yet another asshole had decided that asexuality didn’t exist because reasons. “It wasn’t that bad actually; he at least decided that _my_ understanding of asexuality was more important than his. Still don’t like him though,” he grumbles grudgingly.

“Bucky you can’t keep hating Tony because Steve is dating him, that isn’t fair,” Natasha says and Bucky sulks.

“I can and I will,” he says indignantly. Natasha looks disappointed in him, prompting Bucky to adopt the guilty face a freshly scolded puppy usually had.

“Steve didn’t hate me for no reason when we started dating, it’s unfair to take your feelings out on Tony,” she says. Actually Steve had hated her when she and Bucky started dating but he also realized his feelings were irrational and senseless and sitting around waiting for her to screw up so he could run off to tell Bucky and break them up was terrible. He guessed he was a lot better at hiding his feelings than Bucky was if Natasha didn’t realize that.

Bucky glares at the nearest wall, “why is everyone on his side?” he says and he must sound whiney even to himself.

“Because his side happens to be the right side, Bucky, he can’t help being in a relationship with me,” Steve says. Technically he could but that didn’t mean he should have to because Bucky was being self-conscious.

“Can so,” Bucky mumbles, wrapping his singular arm around his middle as if that would somehow help this situation.

Steve sighs, “I’m not going to just up and leave you Bucky, you didn’t abandon me for Natasha and frankly I’m a little offended that you think that I _would_ abandon you like that,” he says. They’ve been friends since… almost as far back as Steve could remember honestly, long enough that Bucky has been more than a friend for a long time.

“Come on, give Tony a chance, he thinks making vines with literal bathbombs is a hilarious thing to do, clearly he isn’t that bad,” Natasha says.

“That’s a terrible idea Natasha, that’s so irresponsible,” Bucky says, frowning.

“See? Told you!” Steve says. He should not have to explain to two adults that throwing bombs in tubs was a bad idea, they should just know that that was a dumb thing to do.

“See? Steve agrees,” Bucky says.

Natasha rolls her eyes, “you two are no fun,” she mumbles, “but you should give Tony a chance, he’s really not that bad.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, “bond a little.”

“See? Steve agrees with me,” Natasha says because she’s not-so-secretly a petty asshole.

“I don’t love you anymore,” Bucky mumbles, walking away. Natasha laughs and Steve shakes his head, they two of them had some truly weird bonding experiences. Not as weird as Clint and Phil, he supposed, but they at least admitted that going to malls and making up extremely weird and convoluted backstories for suburban moms was an odd thing to do. Doubly so because they every time they somehow ended up either aliens or spies, or alien spies. _Every_ time.


	15. Chapter 15

Steve was still half asleep when Tony’s stupid phone starts vibrating so he fucking resents that. Tony makes an irritated noise and ends the call before flipping over, snoring away. He’s gotten somewhat used to Tony’s odd sleeping patterns, or lack thereof. Tony usually only slept a few times a week unless Steve prodded him out of the lab and into bed and that only worked half the time. Tony’s phone goes off again and Steve groans and grabs the damn thing, clearing his throat a little and propping himself up, “city morgue, you stab ‘em we slab ‘em,” he says cheerfully into the phone.

“Uhh,” the person on the other end says and they probably would have fallen for the act too if Tony didn’t burst out laughing. He was a light sleeper, Steve knew, but he could have at least _tried_ to keep from laughing until Steve hung up. “Give Stark the phone,” the person says and Steve snorts.

“Fuck you,” he says and hangs up. He throws himself back against the pillows, dropping Tony’s phone on his blankets before taking a deep and calming breath because he was going to get more sleep damnit. College students required many hours and he has not had enough of his many hours.

“Oh no you are not going back to sleep, get up,” Tony says, pulling Steve’s pillow out from under his head. Steve was stronger than that though; it was going to take more than a pulled pillow to get him from giving up on blessed sleep. Tony pulls his blanket off, whining and crying at him to get up and Steve curls into a ball to preserve warmth. Unfortunately for him his stupid body was small and frail and his ability to preserve heat was extremely inefficient, “I’ll get you those eggs you loved so much, the ones you ate the morning after we met,” Tony says and Steve blinks himself half into consciousness.

“Produce the food and then we negotiate,” he says, dropping his head back to the mattress. Tony had bought a new one of those too and he wasn’t going to complain about it because his back problems have all but disappeared and he hadn’t even been aware he _had_ back problems until he didn’t.

Sometime later his nose informs him that there is food and he cracks an eye open to find Tony grinning with what looked like those awesome eggs. “Time to get up,” he says, “or I eat the eggs myself.” Steve doesn’t move so Tony calls the bluff, stabbing the eggs and Steve is awake, up, and stealing the fork out of Tony’s hand before he has a chance to eat his delicious eggs. “Ha, thought so,” he says, walking off with the rest of the food and Steve follows him out of the room, blanket draped around his shoulders. He didn’t give a shit if he looked like a cave dweller, he wanted warm and he wanted eggs, and a little bit of Tony would be nice too.

Bucky and Natasha look particularly enthused with his presence in the living room, “have you told him yet?” Natasha asks, bouncing in place. Clint and Phil also look amused and when Phil Coulson looks anything but irritatingly thoughtful something was up.

“No, I had to get him out of bed first, and I win the bet too, you guys owe me embarrassing college stories,” Tony says and hands Steve his food.

“Jokes on you, Stark, I don’t have any embarrassing college stories,” Bucky says, lying through his teeth. Steve could think of a half dozen stories off the top of his head be he was sure Natasha would rectify Bucky’s memory of his embarrassing stories later.

“Tell me what?” he asks to interrupt what was sure to be a bicker match, not caring that his mouth was currently full of food. Phil flinches because he was no fun and Clint look like he wants to steal his food but that was not happening. Steve would physically fight him for these eggs and he’d fucking win too.

“People totally think you’re running for president because of Bucky and Natasha,” Peter blurts, nearly slipping as he slides into the room from down the hall.

“What the fuck?” Steve says, ignoring that his mouth was still full, “how is this possible?” he asks.

Bucky and Natasha laugh and he is not impressed with this development. “To be fair they didn’t actually _start_ the rumor exactly, an old friend of yours from high school Sharon technically started it. But Bucky and Nat turned it into a presidency run and Brock Rumlow doesn’t know what jokes are so he also fueled it,” Tony says and this was too fucking much information for someone who just woke up.

“Okay,” Steve says after he swallows his food for Phil’s benefit, “start from whatever bet you just won and _then_ we can move on to how the hell I ended up running for president.” There were a lot of things he didn’t think he’d ever say in his life and since Tony’s appearance in his life he has said a lot of those things. Like asking how the hell the general public became convinced he was running for president. Hell, he’s said a lot of things that _weren’t_ on his list of things he’d thought he’d never say; like how _the hell did a country full of supposedly educated people become convinced he was running for president?_ Did they think it was a meme? He hoped so for the sake of the country’s future.

“They bet I couldn’t get you out of bed before ten, I bribed you with eggs and I still have a half an hour to spare,” Tony says, grinning. If Steve didn’t love food so much he’d drop it to kick Tony’s ass for this blasphemy.

“You made me get up at the crack of dawn? I’m going to kick your ass,” he says, “when I’m done the eggs. Now how the hell did Sharon, someone I haven’t spoken to since I was in _grade ten_ , managed start a rumor about me running for president? And why the hell would you two encourage it?” he asks, glaring at Natasha and Bucky. They don’t even look remotely guilty. Tony outright laughs, Clint and Peter joining him because they were all assholes.

Phil finally sighs and takes pity on him. “Peggy has that YouTube channel, as you know, and she invited Sharon to do a video and they were talking about you. Well, Sharon was talking about the people who didn’t actually believe that you’re, well, you so she told this story about some Facebook status she made or something like that. Point is someone in the comments said something about voting for Rumlow, which is when you jumped into the fray and impressed Sharon with like a three thousand word essay with several sources as to why that was a terrible idea. What she learned from the experience, apparently, is that she kind of wanted a Steve Rogers presidency. Bucky and Natasha ran with that and now Twitter has _exploded_ ,” he says, looking pained.

Steve takes a deep breath, “this is worse than that time Deez Nutz run for president,” he mumbles, “please tell people that I am _not_ running for president for fuck sakes. Do people really believe this? Like is this a meme? If they do believe this shit please tell them to stop that. All I wanted was eggs and it turns out I’ve been duped unto waking up with the sunrise and my friends have convinced a large number of people that I’m running for _president_. How does Rumlow factor in?” he asks because he probably should know.

Clint and Peter were doubled over, Natasha and Bucky were bent over their phones furiously typing, Tony looks amused, and once again Phil takes pity on him. “Like Tony said, Rumlow’s not very good at humor and he took Natasha’s tweets seriously and now politicians are actually weighing in. You have a surprising amount of support, you should actually try to run for president, that would be hilarious,” he says and he cannot believe his friends were _condoning_ this.

“I would absolutely fund that,” Tony says, looking far too serious about such a thing.

“You are not funding a fake presidency run, that is absurd,” he says, rubbing his temples, “it’s too late to run, do people even know how the American voting system works? God, okay, just tell people that is not a thing. And educate them on how elections are run while you’re at it. And tell them to vote,” he says, looking specifically at Tony, who was still against voting. He was going to vote in the next election if it killed Steve to make him do it. Unless he was voting for Rumlow, then Steve would rather he did not.

Natasha squeals, which he so does not take as a good sign, “oh my _god_ Rumlow has gone on a Kanye-esk Twitter rant about you!” she says, jumping up and down. Bucky takes her phone from her and starts laughing, handing the thing off to Phil so he and Clint could look at it.

“I should have stayed in bed,” he mumbles, shuffling closer to Tony so he could lean on him instead of relying on himself to keep his stupid flesh prison upright. Tony wraps his arm around his waist and squeezes gently in a sad attempt at trying to help. He guessed that Tony was at least trying. That was better than Natasha and Bucky, who were planning a counter attack against Rumlow instead of educating the public about the damn voting system like they should be. Why did he have such bad friends? They should be educating the public, not condoning Rumlow’s idiocy. Actually he lied; trolling Rumlow was hilarious even if it did rely on people taking what was clearly meant to be a meme seriously.

*

Pepper was not proud of her habits of keeping up with all things Steve Rogers but Steve was probably the funniest person she had ever met. Well, knew of, she hardly counted their one encounter meeting each other. She had not been very impressed and he had looked absolutely terrified, as he should have, but Tony didn’t appear to be in any danger so she had reluctantly admitted she was wrong. It was a tough day when Tony did a better job managing his relationships than she did but he _did_ find a gem.

Steve was not at all impressed that people, for some reason, thought he was running for president and although he appreciated being a meme his supposed presidency was _not_ a thing. So he had made a YouTube video about it that had somehow morphed into twenty minutes of him explaining how the voting system worked in America. Someone had taken that and made a compilation video of all the times he had sighed in the original video. The fact that it totaled three minutes of Steve sighing was telling. If Tony asked she’d never admit it but she frequently watched videos of his hilarious responses to things. He had reacted very well to his newfound fame, if a little irritated with the attention, and Tony’s face as he watched Steve chew people out was just precious.

Tony throws the door to her office open and she pauses the video before more than one sigh can escape the speaker of her StarkPad so Tony doesn’t know. He frowns, “are you watching a video of Steve sighing?” he asks and that was impressive. Tony was true to his constructed image of being a little… out of touch socially and so he didn’t tend to pay attention to things the way other people might. It was a curse and a blessing really, because he never mentioned the horrible five years in which she thought she looked good as a brunette, but he also showed up two hours late to meetings all the time. The fact that he knew that the sigh belonged to Steve told her plenty about his investment in their relationship.

“No,” she says and casually slides the StarkPad aside so her pride could remain intact.

He grins, “was so. Response to that video he made ranting about people not understanding the American voting system?” he asks and Pepper sighs. When Tony was paying attention he was _paying attention_ , there was no sense in lying.

“I found his eye rolls amusing. I can’t imagine why you would like him though, I know you do,” she says when Tony opens his mouth, “but I get the distinct impression he’s always in lecture mode. You hate being lectured,” she says. It had led to her and Rhodey constructing some damn creative ways to tell Tony he was wrong without him feeling like he was being lectured and controlled. It really was a shame Howard Stark was dead because she would have loved to kill him herself for all the damage he had done to poor Tony. Why Howard had ever decided he was qualified to lecture anyone on anything floored her still but sadly he was not around for her to ask, or demand, or choke the life out of.

“It’s different with him,” Tony says. He frowns though, like he can’t quite figure out why that was different, or how, and she knew that wouldn’t sit well with him. Tony absolutely loathed questions and mysteries, he worked damn hard to solve as many as he could, so his attraction to Steve being a mystery irritated the hell out of him.

“We’re both aware of that. Did you have something important to tell me?” she asks. It was a fifty-fifty shot that Tony had something important to say or he was here to talk about some absurd topic. More than once she had kicked him out of her office for going on longs rants about furries of all things. She now had far more knowledge on the subject than she personally wanted. How _Tony_ had that much knowledge on furries she had no idea but Tony had a poicy that he’d try anything twice just to make sure he was right about it the first time so she was afraid to ask. There were just some things she never needed to know about Tony Stark. Unfortunately she already knew most of them.

For a moment Tony looks a bit lost, “uh,” he says, trying to work out his own motivations, “right. Yes, you and Steve have a date, please do your best not to murder him, or scare him off, or like anything else terrible,” he says.

“Does Steve know about this?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. She wouldn’t agree to dinner with her after the last time they spoke so she doubted he would. He seemed at least sensible enough to have some sense of self-preservation, unlike Tony, who regularly flirted with death in the lab. She was rather familiar with what to do in life threatening situations with a nutty billionaire by now.

Tony shuffles guiltily, “well, sort of,” he says, avoiding eye contact.

“What did you do, Tony?” she asks. Undoubtedly something stupid and ill-thought out, it was just a matter of _how_ stupid and terribly thought out his plans were.

“Nothing _bad_ ,” he says and that doesn’t bode well. The last time he used that phrase he accidentally destroyed some poor sap’s work in the R&D department. “But I told Steve to meet me at that art place you like, you know, the one with the paintings,” he says as if that narrowed it down. She knew exactly what gallery he meant but still, “except he’s going to meet you there so good luck with that, bye!” he finishes in a rush and flees the room.

“Tony Stark you get back here!” she says in her most commanding tone but Tony is gone, practically running down the hallway to avoid his responsibilities. She resigns herself to her fate but resolves to call Steve to tell him what was going on instead of letting Tony think lies were the best way to foster friendship. After she was finished watching that video of Steve sighing and rolling his eyes though, that was too good to pass up.

*

Tony was a god damn idiot but he did have good intentions so Steve decides he’ll talk to Tony later and deal with Pepper now. He so hoped this wasn’t going to end in his death though Pepper sounded calm in the phone call she had made to him to outline Tony’s deception. He had wondered why Tony would want anything to do with an art gallery but bonding with Pepper over art made sense, Tony frequently lamented that her love of art cluttered his walls with paintings he had no appreciation for. It was a shame, actually, because Pepper had excellent taste in Steve’s opinion.

He’s always been fond of abstract paintings, things that looked like chaos on canvas. It was calming somehow, to look at something that was such a mess but also so well put together, something that resulted in such beauty despite the disoriented state of the art. The chaotic state reminded him of people and how messy they could be, but how beautiful the whole was. Bucky thought that was profound or something but Bucky was weird.

Pepper was waiting outside the gallery so he picks up the pace even though he was ten minutes early. So he was trying to look good, the last time he encountered Pepper she threatened to kill him, he figured looking good was a necessary part of keeping his life at this point. Her smile upon seeing him is pleasant enough but Pepper’s smile was not to be trusted, he knew, but he smiles back. “Sorry about this,” she says and that so does not bode well.

“To be honest if I live it’ll be worth it,” he blurts out and cringes. Of course he couldn’t keep it together for at least five seconds but he never did have very good luck with these things.

At least Pepper laughs, “oh if I wanted you gone you would be,” she says, “I am very efficient.” She laughs again at what must be a pretty amusing look on his face because okay, that wasn’t frightening whatsoever. Jesus Christ.

“Great, and if you kill me in an art gallery people probably wouldn’t even be able to tell me apart from the art,” he mumbles. It was a real fear and after working in an art gallery for the last two years and seeing the weird shit people decided was art he was completely justified in his feelings on the subject. As Scott would point out there was a pickled horse dong one time. Or that giant sculpture of that baby head that was freakishly lifelike. Or the trash cubes that Tony had a fondness for though thankfully Pepper told him he was not to get any fucking trash cubes. He should mention that he also hated the trash cubes; it might win him brownie points.

“I am dying to know what you’re thinking so hard about,” she says as they walk.

“Trash cubes,” he blurts and she makes a face, “I know, I know. And of all the art Tony could like he chooses _literal_ trash? Seriously? He has absolutely no appreciation for art,” he says, shaking his head. Tony, unlike himself, was not at all fond of abstract art, or pretty much any other art.

Thankfully his words serve as something of an ice breaker and Pepper seems more relaxed, “oh of course, he can’t possibly like something pretty, he has to like… well the cubes _are_ technically trash. Please tell me you have better taste than that,” she says, looking pinched. He knew the feeling but trying to explain art to Tony was like trying to explain astrophysics to a chimp. Sure, chimps were smart, but they probably didn’t give a shit about astrophysics.

“You have great taste in art,” he says, “I never find someone else outside of art communities that likes abstract like I do. People always say stupid shit like ‘a monkey could do it’,” he says, doing his best impression of Tony saying the phrase. Someday Steve would teach him a proper appreciation of how much work went into an abstract painting but until then he’d just give him judgmental looks and tell him that he just didn’t understand art.

Pepper snorts, “well, I’m sure you’ve at least pointed out that art is far more difficult than Tony knows,” she says, smiling pleasantly.

“Oh I have but Tony refuses to believe that any sort of work goes into paintings that involve flinging paint at the canvas,” he says, “and he’s very stubborn in his beliefs.” He figured he’d at least do one more painting at some point in his life; Tony could appreciate how much work went into art then. He used to spend hours determining where he wanted things placed specifically, thinking over techniques, getting annoyed when things didn’t quite match up with what he envisioned. It was worse when he went with more structured abstract and _that_ didn’t work out because he literally drew the fucking lines out where he wanted them and he felt personally victimized by his art’s inability to cooperate.

“So are you from what I’ve seen,” Pepper points out, “I’m sure at some point one of you will break and my best are on Tony.” That was flattering considering Tony was probably one of the most stubborn people he has ever met, minus himself if Bucky and Nat were to be believed. He didn’t personally think he was _that_ stubborn, it was hardly his fault he was right most of the time, but his friends have informed him on multiple occasions that he was far too stubborn for his own good.

“I’m sure Tony will be the one to give up his absurd notions too because I’m right and he just doesn’t know it yet,” he says confidently. Tony would have to accept Steve’s correctness at some point; he was just biding his time with this particular issue.

Pepper nods, “well if anyone can do it it’d be you,” she says, “trying to get Tony to change his mind on things before he wants to is like trying to herd cats into a swimming pool. Herding cats would be hard enough, herding them into a swimming pool? That’s basically impossible.”

She wasn’t wrong if cat stereotypes were true, but that wasn’t really his experience. “I have no idea why people think herding cats is hard, or why people think they don’t like water. I’ve had a lot of cats and they all loved water and were easily herded,” he says.

“I think you should consider that perhaps you were more stubborn than the cats and they knew it so they simply went along with your plans,” Pepper says, smiling at him in a way that thankfully didn’t likely indicate that his death was upon him. Funny she should say that though because Bucky used to say the same thing when they were young, that he was so stubborn even the cats knew better than to interrupt his plans.

He chose to believe that the cats were just weird for their species and happened to enjoy water. They were the best cats though Clint’s old golden retriever Lucky was also a great pet, at least until it got kidnapped by the Russian mafia and honestly that sounded fake. It really shouldn’t be surprising considering most of his life read like a bad movie, like somehow making a relationship out of a celebrity calling a number on the side of a bathroom stall.

It turned out he and Pepper got along surprisingly well when she didn’t think he was trying to somehow hurt Tony nor had other nefarious intentions. He hadn’t actually expected to like Pepper so much and he could see why Tony was so attached. Her dry wit and humor was entertaining and her taste in art was fantastic, even if Tony didn’t appreciate it whatsoever. They had both decided that they’re mutual love of art was sure to make up for Tony being completely ignorant to the subject.

“I can see why Tony loves you so much,” she says as they judge yet another boring ass Bansky wannabe piece. They both found most political art to be pretentious though Steve had considerably stronger views than her by virtue of knowing more about activism and art. If he had to see one more stupid piece with a bunch of pills or some other drug spilled over an American flag he’d scream. Drugs didn’t ruin America, colonialism did.

“Yeah? Sometimes I wonder what he sees,” he admits. Tony was… well he was _Tony Stark_ , he could do so much better than Steve and he wouldn’t even have to work to do it so why he settled with Steve he had no clue.

“Someone who isn’t willing to bend to his every whim that is intelligent, perceptive, caring. Tony has never been fond of things that are easy for him, which was why I thought he was so disinterested in romance at first. Why bother with something that was so easily attainable? But I think he’s always been looking for something different and then he found you,” she says. He raises an eyebrow because that was one hell of a compliment, especially from her. “I was wrong about you and I figured I should admit it, don’t expect such a nice compliment again,” she says primly and they both laugh.

“And now I can see why Tony likes you so much. It struck me as weird that Tony’s two best friends were well known for being rigid rule followers when he is… not,” he says, “but I was clearly missing a lot of the information.” Like Rhodey’s willingness to follow Tony where ever he went to make sure he was safe, and Pepper’s humor and protectiveness. They both kept him grounded too, albeit in different ways, and he needed that.

“Someone has to keep him grounded, he certainly isn’t up for the job,” she says and Steve nods even though he’d like to give Tony more credit than that. But he was flighty at best, always chasing the next discovery, the next new and innovative thing, constantly looking for something better, something _perfect_. He was a dreamer of the highest caliber and it was part of what drew him to Tony in the first place, his willingness to learn, relearn, tear down, rebuild, remodel. It wasn’t just his tech that he did that with and it was so rewarding to watch Tony make connections, filter ideas, and dispose of what he deemed useless or wrong. He wished more people were like Tony that way, even if he was stubborn at times. Steve couldn’t really complain about that either, he was stubborn too.

“True, even if it is one of my favorite things about him, the way he can work and rework things so fast and easily. His ability to make connections and apply them elsewhere is impressive, even if he doesn’t think so sometimes. He clearly has no problem picking up social justice concepts and explaining situations with them, he’s done it a few times with me but he seems to think he’s bad at it,” he says. Tony had a bit of a complex in his opinion, it was like everything had to be perfect or it was crap. It made him a good inventor and business man because markets were competitive and they required newer and better models, which Tony was always able to provide. Unlike a lot of other companies he also listened to what the users of his product said about it and adjusted accordingly, and his updated tech actually did new stuff. It was what made him successful at business, but what made him so terrible at relationships.

Pepper nods, “Tony is far too much of a perfectionist,” she agrees, “I think that’s why he’s always had a difficult time forming relationships. People like to assume he’s exactly what the media makes him out to be and when he doesn’t live up to those expectations everyone ends up frustrated and annoyed, but especially him. I think he thinks he has to live up to everyone’s standards and that he’s a failure if he doesn’t, which is a problem when he never lives up to people’s preconceived notions,” she says. Yeah, so Steve had noticed.

Whenever he made a criticism of their relationship, no matter how small or unassuming, Tony wilted. It was especially difficult when Tony was trying to do something nice without considering Steve’s feelings first, like the apartment, and then when Steve reacted without thinking of how Tony would perceive that reaction. They were working on that though, and hopefully Tony would learn that huge gestures didn’t necessarily mean spending outrageous amounts of money. He had made the mistake of looking up property prices in the area he was in and he quickly decided he never wanted to see a number than high again.

“I know, though I’m not exactly sure what makes me different from everyone else. It isn’t like I haven’t made the mistake of thinking he was exactly what the media made of him,” he says. It was embarrassing to think about now but it was true nonetheless. The media seemed to emphasize the worst of Tony’s traits and acted like those particular traits encompassed the whole. It made him as likable as it did loathable, depending on who you’re talking to.

“You were willing to look past that, surprising considering how stubborn you are,” Pepper says, “but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. You have made Tony so much more bearable to be around with all your social justice rants, now he thinks before he speaks at least three percent more of the time. It doesn’t sound like a lot but I’m sure you know how much that would make a difference,” she says and Steve laughs. Yeah, Tony had a bad habit of saying whatever it was that came to mind, which either led to some hilarious rant about cucumbers or something equally random or something cringe-worthy. He at least had the good sense to realize that he sounded like an ass most of the time at least, though his newfound habit of thinking about phrasing was considerably necessary.

He shakes his head, “yeah three percent is a surprisingly large amount of talking for Tony,” he says, “but I am happy to help.” Tony, when he actually took time to think things over, was literally too smart to be ignorant. When he examined things closely half the time he decided his previous assumptions were useless and didn’t hold up to reality, the problem was getting him to slow down and see things. He was so used to knowing everything right away in regards to business and tech that he forgot that those were areas where he was an expert and he wasn’t an expert in everything.

Pepper opens her mouth to respond but she spots something behind him and her expression turns sour. He looks over his shoulder and finds Christine approaching and he makes the same unimpressed face Pepper had, exchanging a look of irritation with her. “Well if I hadn’t decided I liked you before I certainly do now, anyone who hates Christine is a friend of mine,” she says. He wanted to ask about that but he had no time before the bane of their existence would be upon them.

Christine stops in front of them and Pepper gives her that same chilly murder smile she had given him when they first met and frankly Steve is glad he wasn’t on the receiving end of that. Christine doesn’t even look ruffled though and Steve wasn’t sure if he should be impressed or terrified that she didn’t find Pepper Potts scary. “You,” she says in a condescendingly friendly tone with a smile to match, “need to stop telling people that my origin story to your relationship is fake.”

Steve snorts, “I’ll do what I want, if you told the truth to begin with you wouldn’t have to worry about covering your ass. How’s that for taking responsibility and accepting accountability for your actions, you went on about it in your previous articles about Tony pre company overhaul. Maybe you should eat your own words,” he says and Pepper grins at him.

Excellent, they were bonding for real now instead of sharing mutual appreciation for their presence in Tony’s life. He had already won Rhodey over so Pepper was the only person, thankfully, he had left to impress. Happy didn’t seem too invested in Tony’s love life though Steve suspected that was because Tony’s love life was often synonymous with his sex life so perhaps the driver was just waiting for Tony to get bored.

His sharp response earns him another irritated smile but with more edges this time, “you have no idea how good you have it, kid, I have made your life considerably easy thus far and I can ruin it in a snap so don’t test me,” she says in a low tone, smile still on her face as to not look suspicious to the people around them.

He takes a step forward, “listen lady, I get that you’re a master of playing with the public and I can appreciate your ability to weave an intricate story of lies so well that millions of people fall for your act but that isn’t really my thing. You want to play the game, fine, but I prefer to overturn the board because the game fucking sucks. If you want to write fiction I highly recommend a career change,” he says. She’d be damn good at writing fiction too with her ability to construct people to be viewed in particular ways. Her characters would be dynamic and interesting, that was for sure.

Pepper makes a pleased noise beside him, clearly happy with the direction this conversation had taken.

Christine laughs harshly though not loudly enough to attract attention, “you’re a dreamer if you think you can get out of the game that easy, maybe you should be the one to take up fiction writing because you’re living in a fantasy land. All you have to do is keep your damn mouth shut and if you can manage to do that I _might_ write nice stories about you. Don’t forget who people are relying on to get their daily fix of the live you and Tony now have,” she says in a vaguely threatening tone.

Steve snorts, “yeah, alright, you probably should have figured out that I don’t scare easy by now so you can keep your threats to yourself. And just so you know I’ve only told people who asked about the real story, any other rumors can be played off as just that, rumors. People have made up insane conspiracy theories about Natasha being Tony’s kid and me being a sex robot, it would not be hard to dismiss other theories of our initial meeting as the ramblings of some nutty fans. You have to know that, you’re not a stupid person even if I wish you were, so why are you here?” he asks. Christine was too smart to risk this in public if something hadn’t gone wrong or was otherwise compromised in some way.

She sighs, “people listen to you more than I’d like, including my editor and I am _not_ getting fired because you couldn’t keep your trap shut. So I’m here to tell you to shut up and let me do my job,” she says. Steve raises an eyebrow because that was a bold move for someone whose ass was on the line. He suspected that she had some other play but unfortunately for her so did he.

“Alright,” he says and both Pepper and Christine blink in surprise but it’s Christine who recovers first.

“What’s your deal, Rogers?” she asks, squinting skeptically at him.

He grins, “Tony’s been toying around with being aromantic, if he decides that’s the label that fits you don’t get to erase that,” he says. Christine looks pissed and Pepper lets out a snort, covering her mouth as she laughed a little.

She gets a dirty look from Christine for her efforts but she chooses to keep her focus on him, “no one is going to believe a love story about someone who’s aromantic, most people don’t even know what that is,” she says, irritated. His eyebrows go up again because he was surprised Christine knew what that was, “what? I have eyes, it wasn’t hard to gather that Stark had no interest in romantic connections, hell, a lot of the time he had an active _dis_ interest in romantic connections. You threw me for a loop but it didn’t take long to gather that the connection wasn’t really romantic, not on his end anyways,” she says. Steve’s eyebrows remain lifted and out of the corner of his eye he sees Pepper’s eyebrows lift too.

“What drew you to that conclusion?” he asks.

“Experience. When you don’t know what you’re feeling and you live in a world where everything is romantic, platonic, or familial you automatically sort feelings into those three categories. Doesn’t feel quite platonic or familial? Must be romantic, process of elimination, except that doesn’t really fit but there are no more categories left. You make it fit, even if it doesn’t exactly match up,” she says.

Huh, so you learned something new every day. “That was surprisingly insightful. Do we have a deal?” he asks.

Christine gives him a hard look, “fine, we have a deal. Now tell me how the hell you managed to convince the public that you’re running for president,” she says. He lets out a long sigh and Pepper laughs.


	16. Chapter 16

[Companion Playlist](http://8tracks.com/wintyr/we-re-so-happy-even-when-we-re-smilin-out-of-fear)

His video on the voting system went viral, at least, so now he didn’t have to worry about people not knowing how this worked. The unexpected side effect was that his sighing as now become a meme and Pepper, Rhodey, and Tony look great pleasure in mimicking his dramatics. “Don’t you two have a Board meeting soon?” Rhodey asks after they finally calmed down from laughing at a conversation entirely comprised of mimicking Steve’s dramatic sighs. He had ended up unintentionally winning the sighing argument that Tony and Pepper were having about said Board meeting by rolling his eyes and letting out a sigh far more dramatic than theirs.

Tony and Pepper respond to Rhodey’s comment with dramatic sighs and twin eye rolls. “Fuck you guys,” Steve mumbles, glaring at them. Tony and Pepper sigh again and Rhodey bursts out laughing at the look on Steve’s face.

“Oh man, you look so mad. I am so looking forward to all the other times you will become a meme because this is gold,” he says. He had come here to escape Clint, Bucky, and Natasha partaking in this meme only to find that Tony, Pepper, and Rhodey were not above this immaturity. Apparently he had a collection of very immature friends and he, for one, was upset about that.

“We do actually have to leave for that meeting,” Pepper says and Tony lets out an irritated groan.

“Can’t we call in dead or something?” he asks, “I hate dealing with the Board, they never understand anything I tell them because they’re all idiots.” That wasn’t wrong according to Pepper; they had had a long talk after they had left the art gallery and Christine behind. They had bonded over their mutual hatred for the woman and their mutual love for Tony.

There were plenty of other things they had in common but Tony and Christine were the most passionate of those things so they had dominated the conversation unintentionally. He had also learned that Pepper was in a relationship with some woman named Maria but he was to keep that quiet because Tony was terribly nosey and protective and she didn’t want Tony digging through Maria’s life. That would absolutely be Tony’s first reaction too so he readily agreed. That, and they both agreed that Tony would probably find it weird that Pepper was dating someone with the same name as his mother, even if Hill was not his mother’s maiden name.

“It would make no sense to call in dead, Tony. And I know that the Board never sees your ideas like you do but you’ll convince them just like you always do and they’ll have to acknowledge that you’re brilliant and amazing just like they always do and then we can pizza with Rhodey and Steve,” she says.

“I didn’t even know I needed pizza until you said that, Tony go hurry up and tell those Board members to stuff it and go with your doubt crazy ass idea that will somehow work just like it always does. I want pizza and I don’t want to wait,” Rhodey says, pushing Tony towards the door. Tony puts up minimal protest but he goes because he doesn’t want to leave Rhodey hanging on pizza. Clever, Steve would admit, manipulating Tony into doing what Pepper wanted but it was relatively harmless, Tony would have ended up at that meeting eventually, this way was just faster.

“Ten bucks says I can kick your ass at Mario Kart,” Steve says to Rhodey after a moment and Rhodey snorts.

“Hell no, I’ve been gaming since before you were born, there is no way you’ll beat me,” Rhodey says.

“That’s what you think,” Steve says, grinning. He ends up blue-shelling the hell out of Rhodey’s ass and winning. After his third loss Rhodey ends up accepting that his dignity was dead and they change tactics, switching to a first person shooter game that Steve outplays him in too. Rhodey might have been alive longer but Steve had one singular friend in high school, he played a _lot_ of video games to pass the time.

*

Tony was irritated with his inability to figure out his fucking feelings and this needed to be settled immediately. Only he had no clue what the hell he was doing and Steve’s friends had all those interesting terms and all that knowledge that he just… didn’t. He had tried to do some research but there was too much overlap in what he was finding to create any sort of separation. There were separations, he knew, but he didn’t know where to draw the line because he hadn’t even heard of half of the attractions listed let alone how they affected his relationship.

Bucky though, he knew stuff about this sort of thing so Tony had taken it upon himself to employ his help in figuring out what the fuck was going on in his head. Tony sure as hell wasn’t qualified to do so if his so far useless attempts to understand his own psychology were any sort of indication. His plan goes over way better in his head than it does in practice though because Bucky looks irritated and Tony has no clue what he said that was wrong. “Aromantic isn’t the same thing as asexual,” Bucky says in a snide tone. He was sure Steve would be able to give him a long list of reasons as to why that irritated Bucky complete with a long history, current oppressions that fueled Bucky’s irritation, and the social implications but Tony wasn’t that smart. Or at least not in that way.

“I know that, but it would imply a set of non-standard attractions, yeah? Because that’s what I need help with and I have no fucking clue what I’m doing,” he says. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to either, not knowing what he was doing and he didn’t like it very much. He was used to being an expert, more than an expert really, he was so far ahead of everyone else on any given occasion that he was essentially alone in his expertise.

“Stop glaring at the poor bastard, Barnes, he’s asking for help and I get the feeling that doesn’t happen often,” someone else says, Sam. Tony recognized him from his admittedly short run at attempting to feed the homeless instead of talking to them. He was far better at the latter because he and food did not get along whatsoever, never had. Rhodey could attest to that given the sheer number of microwaves they went through when they roomed together in college, including the three that literally blew up.

“Thanks,” Tony says. He just wanted to figure out what was going on, he didn’t much feel like having Steve’s friends chew his ass for things he didn’t understand.

“Alright so sit your ass down and lets figure out your feelings, I _love_ playing therapist,” Sam says, grinning like he was actually looking forward to hearing Tony make frustrated noises for the next three hours before he gave up and invented a cool new gadget.

“You probably shouldn’t,” someone, Phil Tony thinks, says, “you’re not very good at it.”

Sam makes an offended noise, “I am a fabulous therapist!” he says, hand pressed to his heart dramatically. The two bicker back and forth and Tony sits on the couch to watch until they remembered that he existed.

“This is going to take like fifty years, what are you having trouble figuring out?” Bucky says finally, giving Sam and Phil looks.

“Uhh, everything? I looked up attraction types but they all sort of blend together, how the hell am I supposed to know what’s sensual attraction or romantic attraction when they’re constructed as the same fucking thing? Same goes for basically every other form of attraction too,” he says. Minus being unsure about romantic attraction he connected with Steve on every other level, but he didn’t know where those levels started and ended in relation to romantic attraction. He had tried using Pepper and Rhodey as a baseline but it hadn’t worked because the attractions weren’t the same with them either. Now he was just annoyed and confused.

“Oh you sorry soul, I know the feeling,” Phil says sympathetically.

Sam throws a pillow at him, “stop stealing my therapist spotlight,” he says, “let’s work out your attractions, honey.”

Tony squints at him, “didn’t you hate me like three weeks ago?” he asks, frowning.

“Steve hated you three months ago and now he’s your lap puppy, we can change our feelings. Real fuckin’ quick if you’re Steve,” Sam says, earning a glare from Bucky.

“Shitty therapist,” Phil says, clicking his tongue, “let’s start with sexual attraction, that should be the easiest for you.”

“That I know is a thing that is there,” he says confidently. It was the easiest for of attraction to locate though there were still considerable overlaps with other forms of attraction.

“Excellent, we’ve already sorted one out, we’re doing great,” Phil says and that was surprisingly relieving.

“We’re figuring out if he’s aromantic, not giving birth,” Sam says and Tony snorts. “We might as well go into aesthetic attraction next considering people confuse aesthetic attraction for sexual attraction, or assume they’re the same thing. What’s that look like for you?”

Tony shrugs, “I have no idea, I don’t really know where aesthetic attraction starts and sexual attraction ends,” he says. Logically he knew there was a difference; he just didn’t know what the difference was per se, or how to identify it in his own life at least.

“Do you have a favorite color?” Bucky asks.

“Duh, red,” he says. Who the hell didn’t have a favorite color?

“Why that color? I’m sure you like other colors,” Bucky says.

“Sure, but they aren’t as bright and flashy, and they don’t suit me,” he says. Red was loud, ostentatious, impossible to miss, like he is. Plus he looked fucking great in red and he was a big fan of anything that made him look more attractive than he already was.

“Congratulations, you’ve just located aesthetic attraction. Like sure, you can appreciate other colors but they don’t speak to you the way red does, people are the same way. Sometimes people are just pretty, sometimes they’re sexy, sometimes they’re _attractive_ in those ways rather than just being observably pretty or sexy, and sometimes they’re a blend of those things,” Bucky says. And this was why Tony decided these people were so much more qualified for this than he was, they had all this experience and language to explain things in ways he didn’t, and a bunch of useful analogies too.

“Oh, so basically how I feel about Pepper, then. Like she’s pretty but not in a sexy way, mostly because I’m not stupid enough to try and also because she’s way out of my league but still, that was surprisingly useful,” he says. And Rhodey too, but in different ways because different features were attractive, like his smile, and his eyes. Also when he had hair it was fun to brush but he hasn’t had hair since his college days, so there was no hair brushing anymore and Tony’s own hair just wasn’t the same. For one it almost never needed brushing, the messy look was attractive on him. Rhodey on the other hand had put some serious maintenance into his hair back when he still had it; they used to make a day of it when they lived together.

“Great, so now you’ve figured that out, how does it relate to your relationship with Steve?” Phil asks. He thinks about it for a moment, trying to separate it from sexual attraction. It takes a moment but he remembers that day in Italy when Steve had been drawing him and Tony remembered his smile, tipped up just slightly in a rueful way that had been beautiful, he remembered, but not sexy. Aesthetic attraction, alright, he’s got this. Sort of. There was something else there too, in the way he remembered it but he wasn’t entirely sure what it was.

“That’s a thing, and not necessarily the same thing as sexual attraction. See, you guys are good at this, I’ve made more progress in the last fifteen minutes than I have in the six hours of research that I did yesterday,” he says. And he felt a good ten times less frustrated too, all because of a few useful analogies and some general connections he had made himself.

Sam’s eyebrows go up, “six _hours_? Man you really are hopeless,” he says.

Phil throws the pillow that Sam had tossed at him earlier back at his head, “he isn’t hopeless, he’s just made a bunch of progress! He’s just fallen victim of society’s way of oversimplifying and combining forms of attraction. Terrible therapist,” Phil says, shaking his head, “alright then. Let’s move on, I’m going to suggest sensual attraction, any objections?” he asks.

Bucky and Sam shake their heads, “nah, then we can move on to emotional attraction because they tend to go hand-in-hand,” Bucky says. Sam agrees with this and Phil nods like he was going through a mental checklist that the other two had unwittingly agreed to go through too. Well, Steve always said that Phil was frighteningly efficient.

“Lovely, anyone got any cute analogies that?” he asks. This particular form of attraction had been the most confusing because it had intersected with sexual attraction, emotional attraction, and romantic attraction and he wasn’t sure where they all started and ended.

“I’m going to take a stab at this and say you’re confused on what’s sexual, sensual, or romantic,” Sam says and Tony nods. “Think therapy dogs, you don’t want to have sex with them, but you have a strong connection with them that can be pretty physical at times. Like you pet the dog, love the dog, the dog loves you and watches out for you and stuff, that’s a form of sensual attraction. It’s a comfort thing, like cuddling or hugs, parent-child relationships are pretty sensual, especially when the child is young,” Sam says.

He snorts, “Howard wasn’t exactly a model parent and my poor mother was too caught up in trying to deal with his shit to deal with me. Jarvis was pretty much the only one who ever thought to pay any sort of attention every once and while, and Anna when she was around,” he says. Jarvis had other shit to do, and he wasn’t the one who decided to have a kid only to straight up neglect the kid for years so he didn’t fault Jarvis for not handing out as much attention as he had needed. That was Howard’s job, and his mom’s, but they had both been too caught up in each other and Howard’s work to care about him all that much. “But I get what you’re saying anyways, I used to brush Rhodey’s hair in college, and wash it. That sounds kind of like sensual attraction, I kind of miss that, actually,” he says.

“See, exactly, you aren’t _that_ bad at this you just didn’t know where to start,” Sam says.

Tony supposes that’s true but he regularly started things with no previous base for what he was doing, like his first AI program. No one had ever built something like that before and no one has been able to recreate the results, so why was starting from nothing so hard here? He doesn’t realize he said that out loud until Phil says something.

“You’ve been conditioned you’re entire life to believe that romantic, sexual, sensual, emotional, and intellectual attractions are all the same thing,” Phil says, “it isn’t hard to see why you haven’t been able to figure it out on your own. Besides, with tech you have such a high level understanding that you regularly blow everyone else out of the water. You don’t have that same level of understanding when it comes to emotions for yourself or others, it makes sense that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to sort out your feelings without some extra help.” Maybe, Tony thinks, but it was still irritating that these people had so much more information than he did, even with all his reading on the topic.

“What did you research, anyways?” Bucky asks, obviously reading his mind or something equally creepy and weird. And Steve was freaked out by JARVIS; clearly his friends were the ones planning world domination with their creepy mind-reading skills.

“Academic papers, mostly, why?” he asks.

Bucky snorts, “no wonder you were left so confused, most academic discussions of the subject are written by people who have no fucking clue what they’re talking about. Remember when you were running those tests for my arm, which I am still expecting by the way, and I told you that most people only want to understand asexuality according to _their_ standards instead of mine? Well aromantic people have the same problem, especially when they’re in relationships because there isn’t actually language to describe queer platonic relationships. People just assume the relationships are romantic attraction, which it isn’t necessarily the case. Whatever you read was probably a bunch of people talking about something they had no interest in understanding, at least not on the terms of the people who actually feel that way, and it makes reading about the subject confusing. You should have gone to blogs, those have actual real life accounts of how people feel, not a bunch of people butchering a subject they have no understanding of,” Bucky says.

That hadn’t even occurred to him actually. It probably would have been the first thing Steve thought of, he knew so much more about these things than Tony probably ever would. “This is why I came here, I don’t think of these things, I’m logical person, okay,” he says, throwing his hands up. “And don’t get your panties in a twist, Bucky-boo; your arm is almost done. I just have to make some minor adjustments and then I can test it on you, make sure it moves with the rest of your body the way it’s supposed to,” he says.

After his research had been a bust he had gone off to work on that because arms were easy, or at least easier than separating attractions. He had solved most of the problems he had outlined so now all he had to do was properly integrate it into Bucky’s regular movements so that it looked proper rather than like a giant piece of tech.

“I think you and I have very different ideas of logical,” Sam says, “because you are insane.”

“And don’t ever call me ‘Bucky-boo’ again,” Bucky throws in, unimpressed with Tony’s chosen nickname.

“Okay first of all just because I have a tendency to be reckless does not mean I am not logical. I do math, okay, I have no idea how attraction works, it’s never been relevant to me before now. Things are supposed to go together and flow nicely not… not… whatever the hell my brain is doing,” he says, making a noise of frustration.

“Has it occurred to you that your brain is fine, its society that’s fucked? Besides, you’ve always been exceptional, non-standard attractions seem to be your normal if this conversation is any indication. You keep linking things back to Pepper and Rhodey, neither of which are romantic connections for you by the way. Might be a bit of a glaring indicator, that and your absolute confusion as to what romantic attraction even is,” Bucky says.

“All forms of attraction are confusing to me though,” Tony points out, “and the way I feel about Steve definitely isn’t the way I feel about Pepper and Rhodey. It’s… stronger, I guess, like more of the same with some other things tossed in. I don’t know how to describe it and its driving me nuts,” he says.

Phil sighs, “like Bucky said, that’s because there is no current language that adequately describes queer platonic relationships, at least not in English,” he says.

“First of all that is stupid, and second, I am fluent in twelve languages and this doesn’t make sense in any of them either,” he says. He’s tried, several times, to come up with something but it seemed to fall flat every time. There were bits and pieces, certain adjectives or phrases even, but nothing that was… solid, concrete. Nothing that quite lived up to his reality.

“So you have a connection so strong it supersedes the current limitations of language,” Bucky says, “that’s pretty sweet.”

Tony thinks about it for a moment and he decides that yeah, that made things like two hundred percent less frustrating because that _was_ cool and he always had liked being special. _Obviously_ he would have a relationship so special language wasn’t enough to describe it, that made total sense, “thanks Buckaroo, that actually helped,” he says, dodging the pillow Bucky pulls from behind his back and tosses at him. “But still, some stuff doesn’t add up though, sort of. Like cuddling, candle lit dinners, whatever, that stuff is romantic is it not?” he asks. Not that he was particularly drawn to candle lit dinners and thankfully Steve wasn’t either but the principal was the same.

“Those things could be sexual too, but you didn’t make the comparison, why?” Phil asks, tilting his head to the side.

“Because it isn’t a sexual connection at the time, at least not most of the time,” he says. He was explaining it terribly but he never has had a way with words outside of his masterful ability to bullshit his way through Board meetings and press conferences.

“Whether or not something is romantic depends on how you view it, so if you don’t think its romantic is isn’t,” Phil says in an entirely unhelpful fashion.

“I came here because a bunch of people I barely know are more qualified to figure out what the fuck is happening in my head than I am, do you really think I can determine whether or not something is romantic?” he asks sarcastically.

“Bad therapist,” Sam says, shaking his head at Phil, “fine, so you have some lingering doubts, let’s go over some more attractions, see what comes up. Since you and Steve practically flung yourselves into the public I’m going to assume you actually love the guy, so emotional attraction is obviously a thing. What about intellectual attraction?” Sam asks.

He snorts, “duh, I don’t waste time on people I can’t talk to, I had a very long childhood in which conversations were extremely painful, I don’t bother with people I have no interest in now,” he says. It wasn’t until he was in his late twenties that people actually became interesting to talk to outside of Rhodey and Pepper and even then it was very much a case-to-case basis. Like Christine, she was interesting even if he wanted to rip his hair out most of the time whenever they had a conversation.

“So intellectual attraction is a thing, then?” Sam asks.

“Of course, it was what interested me to begin with, the way he was so bold in his opinions, and the way he backed them up. He can map out entire histories of groups of people from what we would consider the beginning of the history of this country until now with names, dates, social policy, what the ramifications of those policies were, how they affected certain groups more than others-“ he pauses, “I’ve never met anyone who can piece things together like that before. It’s so… so… _interesting_ to hear how oppression changes and shifts over time, what that looks like, how law played into it, how law _still_ plays into things- honestly I’m doing a terrible job at explaining this,” he says, annoyed that he was so awful with words when they mattered. He could bullshit his way around just about anything, but emotions? He’s always been a lost fucking cause there. They all knew Steve was smart and knew about social issues, that didn’t explain the attraction whatsoever.

“He does what you do with tech but with social issues,” Phil says and _yes_ , that was exactly it!

“ _Thank_ you, that is exactly what I was trying to say and didn’t have the words for. Yes, right, he takes a bunch of things people wouldn’t even consider were related and explains how those things interact with one another. I’ve never really thought much about humanities but he has given me a whole new appreciation,” he says.

And the _passion_ Steve had when explaining things, the look of concentration as he described social issues, mapped them out, thought out loud. He’s never met anyone with that much passion for something and it was _so_ attractive to him. Unlike everyone else Steve didn’t get boring after five minutes because that initial spark he felt never faded, Steve was just as bright and interesting as he was when they first met. Sort of like Pepper, he expected her to get complacent after a while but she didn’t, or Rhodey, whom Tony expected to quickly turn into the Typical College Guy but didn’t. Except Steve was… more of that somehow, not necessarily more important but… different.

“Hmm. But you’re still confused,” Phil says and it isn’t a question.

“Yeah I guess, I mean all of those things _can_ be romantic, how do I know I’m not just an emotionally stunted moron who can’t identify romantic attraction?” he asks. It was a legitimate question but Bucky gives him a sharp look for saying it out loud. He was sure Steve would have an explanation for that too, and probably an entire lecture to go along with it, but he was just lost.

“Sure they can, but it depends on the person. When I first figured out I was aromantic I was confused too, because a lot of what I felt for Clint sort of matched up with romantic attraction but it didn’t seem quite _right_. I didn’t mind the idea of a romantic relationship so much but what I felt for Clint was so much more than those stupid romance story lines, or those dumb love songs that are singing all the same words using a different tune. It wasn’t some ‘kissing in the rain’ moment and not because I hold anything against kissing in the rain, I just didn’t feel like what the movies said I should. But I knew what platonic attraction was like, I have friends, and I have family too and it sure as hell wasn’t that, so romance was all I had left. It wasn’t until Steve said something about aromantics that I figured out that the feeling I had more aligned with a queer platonic relationship than a romantic relationship. I mean romance was an alright label I guess, but it didn’t adequately describe things. What I felt took all the best parts from platonic, familial, and romantic bonds and put them together and that’s just so much more than what we have words for,” Phil says somewhat wistfully, smiling slightly.

Tony nods along because _yes_ , that was exactly it. He’s never related to romance songs or movies but pretty much everything told him that was because he was a guy, not because he might not experience romantic attraction. And then in college everyone was _obsessed_ with finding a life partner and he wanted that too, minus the whole ‘get married, have kids, enjoy you White Picket Fence American Dream’ bullshit. But people told him that living with friends for the rest of his life was immature and he had believed it instead of investigated further.

By the time he got to be an adult he had developed a reputation as a womanizer and a narcissist, always so obsessed with himself and he had always wondered what was so wrong with that. What was so wrong with only having sex with people? Why did that make him a bad person, the women, and men or that matter, were consenting adults and it wasn’t like he didn’t tell them all up front what he was looking for. Well, more accurately what he was not looking for but no, they were constructed as victims of Tony Stark’s Terrible Womanizing. What happened to the men in that mix he had no clue, people seemed content never to mention them, or to skate over them so they could go back to calling him a womanizer and a self-obsessed asshole. They had so much evidence for the last bit it always struck him as odd that his sex life of all things was what made him more horrible than the rest.

In all honesty he just hadn’t wanted anything more than that initial sexual connection, never _needed_ more than that and he hadn’t understood why people thought that was a bad thing. “God, I was never a womanizing misogynist, I was just aromantic and people made me a fucking villain for it,” he says, frowning. The different kinds of attraction, Phil’s explanation, some of the things he’s read, it all made so much more sense now. All those years wondering why only wanting sex made him horrible, his disinterest in romance as a whole, being far more attracted to someone he could _talk_ to and actually learn from, someone who challenged him- it seemed so obvious now. “Oh.” Well that was an eye opener.

“Oh my god, that makes so much sense, I am so sorry,” Sam says, wide eyed like he had just pieced together what Tony had.

“To be fair I was a raging asshole, not all the hate was unwarranted, but I’ve never been able to figure out why people demonized me for only wanting sexual relationships. The people I slept with were all willing, they all seemed to have a good time, why did it matter that I didn’t date them? Why did that make me a bad person? Now I’m kind of mad because that’s bullshit, and implying that the women I slept with were victims of my sexual appetite all but strips them of their own agency, which is just as sexist as I probably was so fuck those guys,” he says, genuinely upset with this turn of events.

“Wow, actually a lot of things make a lot more sense now,” Bucky says, clearly thinking things over in his head. Sam seemed to be doing the same thing with similar results and Phil beamed happily because he was the one who finally solved the puzzle.

“See, I’m a good therapist,” he says. Sam throws another pillow at him.

*

Rhodey patiently tries to understand what Tony was talking about but it was pretty clear there was an obvious disconnect between Tony’s feelings and his own. Tony appreciated that Rhodey was trying at least and he should have done this instead of going to Bucky for advice because explaining his feelings for Steve on his terms confused Rhodey. That would have been a pretty quick indicator that what he felt wasn’t the norm so to speak and it would have made things ten times easier. Steve had been supportive too, which Tony had expected. Though he hadn’t expected to get a long email with a bunch of blogs, playlists, and various articles to look at but Steve did have a tendency to go above and beyond. And they were all very helpful too.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about man, but that’s great, I’m glad you’re happy,” Rhodey says. Of course he was, Rhodey was a great friend, always had been even when Tony didn’t deserve it.

“Thanks. I wish I had’ve known about this before though, all those times people made me out to be an asshole just because I had no interest in dating, all that shit in college I dealt with because wanting to live with friends made me immature apparently, all that crap I got from people who kept asking when I was going to ‘settle down’. I could have avoided all that bullshit but no, I ended up dealing with all this useless social convention until I happened across a social justice warrior with a vendetta against the system,” he says.

Rhodey snorts, “yeah, he does have a vendetta against the system but I can appreciate his rants against capitalism. About that college thing though, I wish I had’ve known about this aromantic thing too because the look on your face when you were called immature for not really wanting a romantic relationship… I thought about that for _weeks_ after but you refused to talk about it. It bugged me because the way you said it, it wasn’t like you intended to live out your college days forever the way people implied, you just didn’t see yourself in a romantic relationship. I thought maybe you avoided talking about it because you were young and self-conscious so maybe you didn’t appreciate people brining attention to your age but you never did grow out of your disinterest in romance. Steve was a total wildcard no one saw coming but you were clearly happy so I figured I’d let you sort it out on your own,” he says.

Yeah, he remembered Rhodey bringing up that immature comment again but he hadn’t wanted to talk about it, he hadn’t wanted to seem young and naïve, even though he was young and naïve. But Rhodey had never seen him as a child and he hadn’t wanted to ruin that for himself so he had dodged the subject and Rhodey never brought it up again. “Yeah, well I didn’t much appreciate being told I was immature because I had different life goals than they did. I didn’t want to party forever, I just didn’t want to get married and have kids and all that other shit. I didn’t think that made me immature but whatever,” he mumbles. He was less opposed to those things now, but only because marriage would ensure that the Board couldn’t fuck Steve the hell over if something happened to him. Children, well, he’d prefer cats because he got cats. Kids were weird and gross.

“It doesn’t, I just don’t think any of us knew what you meant because _we_ were immature and you were always so far ahead of us all. Made everyone feel so insecure that someone so young was so far beyond where we were,” Rhodey says, shaking his head. He raises an eyebrow because this was news to him; he had never seen any evidence for being supposedly beyond everyone else in college. He always felt like he was leagues behind them all because he was so young and inexperienced.

“What, you didn’t know?” Rhodey asks, “dude, everyone was _so_ jealous of the way you’d come up with on the spot solutions to problems, you didn’t even have to _think_. And then you took over the company and boom, within years you were way more successful than any of us could even hope to be and you weren’t even _trying_. Do you have any idea how many people tried to sabotage you? No, because you were _so good_ at life that you didn’t even _notice_ when people tried to fuck you up. People learned to be jealous of me too, because you didn’t like people, they said you thought you were above them but really you were just too smart to relate to them like they related to each other. But you _did_ like me and they were mad that I lived up to whatever standards you set. It made life hard for a while,” he admits, looking down.

He frowns because he had always chalked up the way people treated Rhodey to racism, Rhodey talked about the subject enough that Tony assumed that was it. He had no idea that people were jealous of Rhodey because he was friends with Tony of all things. “I just thought they were racist, I mean I definitely didn’t understand racism but I figured that was what was wrong because you talked about people being racist all the time,” he says.

“Oh they were racist too, you weren’t wrong. We’re in the middle of one of the best schools in the U.S and you have _all_ these options. But you chose the _black_ guy from the wrong side of town who managed to get in on a scholarship and whatever other bullshit they could invent to explain why a black man was in a white man’s space. You were the most elite of them all, you could have opened doors for anyone of them to do anything they wanted and you chose to spend your time with me. To make matters worse you never put a good word in for anything I did, I was successful all on my own, friendship with you be damned. They didn’t know how to handle it and they took it out on me, and you, but you never noticed when people treated you like shit. Probably because you were used to it. I always wished I had’ve been able to meet Howard Stark just to punch the guy in the fucking face for all the surprised looks you used to give me when I was actually nice to you. No one should ever be so unused to being treated well that they’re surprised by it,” he says protectively, curling his lip in disgust.

Tony remembered that too, being so surprised that Rhodey never yelled at him, never lost his patience, never used him, abused him. “That was why I was friends with you; you never expected anything from me. You were willing to take what I offered, but only if I offered, were people seriously mad about that?” he asks.

It seemed like a silly thing to be pissed off about, that someone wasn’t willing to let you use them for your own success. But then the guys they went to school with were real assholes sometimes, more so than Tony and he knew full well that he had amplified every terrible trait he had to overcompensate for not really fitting in with the college crowd. He was too young, too smart, too successful, too much in general and he had spent a lot of time either playing that up or trying to take it all down. Neither option worked for him.

“Yeah man, they were. And everyone you’ve ever met has been like that; it really wasn’t a surprise to me that you kept me around when I was the only one who was willing to actually see you. And Pep when you hired her. I was worried about Steve, worried about how he managed to get through that big ass wall you built between you and everyone else, especially because things happened to fast. You two are great together though so I guess I had nothing to worry about,” Rhodey says. He means it too, Tony can tell, and that was a high compliment coming from him. “How did that work though, the love thing? That kind of sounds ignorant,” Rhodey says, making a face after realizing his mistake.

“No, I get it, love at first sight only exists in a romantic context, it threw me off too. But I’ve never met my equal, not the way Steve is anyways. Pepper is easily my equal in business, and we work together great in social situations, but Steve is my equal in every way that you and Pepper aren’t. I learn things from him, like _actually_ learn. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve learned things from anyone? Even with you and Pepper I knew what you guys were teaching me, even if it was only in the abstract, but with Steve I get a whole new take on… everything. He deconstructs the world and rebuilds it almost in totality, it’s… it’s amazing,” Tony says. He was so fond of listening to Steve rant because he always found new ways to take things apart and put them back together again, even when he was going over the same subjects. It was fascinating.

“So what drew you in was that he’s smart?” Rhodey says, frowning and he wasn’t getting it, not really.

“No… no, well yes, but no. It isn’t just that he’s intelligent, that’s a lot of it, but its _how_ he’s intelligent. It just isn’t enough for me to talk to someone who’s smart, I get bored because I _know_ what they’re talking about, I usually know more than they do. It makes conversation boring. But Steve, he does what I do with tech,” he says, borrowing Phil’s descriptor, “he takes things apart and puts them back together in new and interesting ways. In ways that I’ve never even dreamed of, in ways a lot of people don’t even think of. It’s new, innovative, intelligent, passionate-” he stops abruptly because from there all he had was what he felt.

It was hard to describe the powerful attraction he felt, the way he wanted to listen to Steve talk forever, to hear his voice, spend time with him. All he had was that warm feeling in his gut telling him that this was _right_ in ways he hadn’t even considered.

Rhodey laughs, shaking his head, “I don’t really understand what kind of love you’re feeling but you are _gone_ ,” he says, squeezing Tony’s shoulder. And yeah, Tony knew, and he was _so_ happy about that.


	17. Chapter 17

Steve had sent the playlists for fun mostly because Tony had a weird vendetta against music that wasn’t from the eighties but he finds Tony in the living room loudly singing along to Don’t Fall in Love by Danko Jones. According to Phil it was the best aromantic song ever and if Tony’s loud off-key singing was anything to go by he agreed. He watches Tony sing into a remote, dancing around for a full two minutes before the song ends and Tony happens to turn around and see him.

Tony jumps, trips on his own feet, almost falls, but he catches himself for a moment before almost falling again and tossing himself on his couch to save his ass from eating hard wood. “I didn’t see you there,” he says, face still planted into the couch cushions.

“I got that impression,” he says, walking over to the back of the couch as Tony flips over, smiling at him.

“You ever realize something about yourself and then suddenly everything sort of aligns right and then you can’t unsee it? I never really paid attention about how _everything_ was coated in romance, I mean I did and it annoyed me, but now I can’t unsee it and its like five hundred times more annoying,” he says. Yeah, Steve felt that. When Bucky had finally figured out he was asexual the same thing happened to him and it had caused a lot of self-confidence issues. He had had similar things happen with a number of issues over the years but he’s also learned to cope with it.

“Trust me, I know, it’s hard to watch movies sometimes without getting irritated with racism and stereotypes,” he says. Sexism too, plus a half dozen other issues.

“Right? I was watching something yesterday, I don’t even remember what it was but all the people of color were villains. I thought you know what, it’s _one_ movie, but then I said something to Rhodey and he listed of like thirty with the same problem off the top of his head and what the fuck? Do white people not remember that _we’re_ the one that colonized? Because we did some terrible shit so I don’t see why everyone else gets shit on,” Tony says, making an irritated noise. Oh, Steve’s noticed that too, even before he was overly aware of social issues.

“Congratulations on being aware of social issues, Tony,” he says. Tony wrinkles his nose at him and Steve laughs.

“Seriously though, in the last three days I realized why I liked certain genres and media types better than others and for the most part it’s because I find romance boring. It doesn’t help that it’s the same white hetero couple falling in love in every god damn movie, and why do they always just ditch their friends after they find a lover? Isn’t it unhealthy to only have one person as a support system in your life? That’s a situation that’s ripe for abuse,” Tony says in a matter-of-fact tone.

“There are a million and one things wrong with how romance is presented, namely that fighting is normal, you’re supposed to hate each other, marriage is the end of the world, I could go on but I’m sure you’re more than aware.” It was probably easier for Tony to see, actually, because he was the one who had to deal with the assumption that everyone automatically wanted romance. Like Bucky, he pointed out issues around sex and how people viewed it and half the time Steve would have never even thought half the things Bucky mentioned were issues. Of course that was because they weren’t issues to _him_ , which Bucky had been quick to point out when Steve had been surprised as the surprising number of issues Bucky brought up.

“Romance and sex being synonymous, that you had to have one to make the other meaningful, that romantic sex was the only sex that matters. The mythical ‘making love’ if you will, never did get that. I mean romantic sex is fine but I just never saw how they correlated, one doesn’t cause the other, they sort of happen together for a lot of people. I don’t even know if I’m making any sense,” Tony says, frowning.

“You’re making perfect sense; Bucky has the same issue except people assume that sexless romance doesn’t exist. It’s shocking, sometimes, when he mentions being ace and then suddenly everything about him is called into question. His relationship with Nat, his manhood, his _humanity_ , if I have to listen to one more asshole call him a plant I’ll fucking kick their ass,” he says, fully prepared to follow through on that.

Tony squints, “most plants… don’t reproduce asexually… I… if they’re going to be assholes could they at least be scientifically correct assholes? That isn’t how things work! Alright, anyways I’ve been thinking about things for the last few days and that aromantic thing is actually pretty accurate. Even with you, and you’re different from anyone I’ve ever met, it was an intellectual attraction that drew me to you and made you more interesting than everyone else. There’s some other stuff too, but mostly that,” he says.

Steve frowns because he has no idea how Tony Stark, a genius, could possibly be intellectually simulated by anything he did. “Intellectual attraction? Sounds fake, but okay,” he says finally, unsure what he was supposed to say to that.

Tony tilts his head to the side in confusion, which Dummy also did when the bot was confused and he was going to start paying more attention to its behaviors. It was weird how it imitated Tony’s mannerisms, or maybe Tony imitated the bot, that would be infinitely less terrifying. “What do you mean ‘sounds fake’?” he asks, “because everyone that spends any amount of time with me can tell you that I have the attention span of a particularly stunted goat unless the person talking actually has something interesting to say. You have a lot of interesting things to say so I listen,” he says.

“Yeah, but you’re a genius, I can’t possibly be all that intellectually stimulating to someone as smart as you,” he says logically. Tony looks hurt but Steve can’t figure out why, it wasn’t like it was meant to insult either one of them, it was just true. Tony was in a whole other stratosphere when I came to intelligence; even among geniuses he was exceptional.

Tony sighs and pulls himself off the couch, stepping closer to Steve and brushing his hair out of his face a little, “you don’t get it. When I talk to people that you might consider my intellectual equals they might be able to get a full sentence in before I’ve mapped the entire conversation out because I’ve had the same conversation dozens of times. I already know what they’re thinking because I’ve already been over those things, surpassed them most of the time, and it makes talking to ‘intellectuals’ boring as hell when you’re smarter than them. But you? You think so differently from what I’m used to dealing with, you think with feeling, compassion, you think with others in mind. I’m always amazed with how you can take something that seems small, innocuous even, and explain how that thing is part of so much more than just that small thing, that things don’t exist in a vacuum separated from everything else. It’s like…” Tony snaps his fingers a few times before something comes to him, “it’s like you reverse engineer social issues and that is infinitely more interesting than listening to a bunch of people relay information I already have,” he says.

Steve smiles, ducking his head because he hadn’t expected that, even if he wasn’t totally on board with it. And Tony’s explanation made sense too, in its own way, because he’d probably be bored of people telling him a bunch of things he already knew too. “Thanks, I guess. I mean I get what you’re saying but the information I have to offer can’t possibly be _that_ interesting to you, not in a way that would be like… attractive I guess,” he says, trying to understand where Tony was coming from but failing. Intellectually stimulating? Maybe. But intellectually _attractive_? He didn’t see how Tony made that leap when he could get this information in a million different ways that didn’t involve Steve.

Tony huffs, irritated, “you are so fucking stubborn, why can’t you just believe me? Okay. It isn’t so much _what_ you’re telling me even though that’s part of it; it’s _how_ you give that information out. That intellectual attraction doesn’t exist independently of all the other ways I’m attracted to you. When you’re explaining something you’re passionate about your whole body is involved, I can hear that in your voice, see it in the gestures you make, I can literally _feel_ your argument you believe in it so strongly. _That’s_ where the attraction comes in, because it isn’t enough for me to be smart, you have to have passion too. Like with Rhodey I liked the way he was good with people, but the attraction sort of fell flat. And with Pepper I appreciate her business intelligence, especially because she sees things the way I do, but it’s really only applicable in that context. With Christine it was only an immediate spark even if I appreciate her ability to manipulate words and people so easily. You though, that passion, the empathy you feel, your ability to work and rework arguments so well that the people around you are pulled in by your words, that’s _attractive_ ,” he says with meaning.

His argument reminded Steve of Natasha’s words when they had first gotten together, about how people listened to him, about how that made other people angry. It wasn’t like he hadn’t notice the truth in that lately too because people were intent on digging into his past to confirm all the things Christine had been writing about him. They had gone looking for authenticity and he had been more than a little surprised with how many people suddenly thought he was the best thing that had ever happened to social justice.

It was flattering but he was only repeating things other people have been saying for years. He could see what Tony meant though, the attraction, because he clearly wasn’t the only one drawn to Steve’s passion for his causes. “I can’t believe I’m talking to one of the smartest people in the world and they think I’m intellectually attractive,” he says. If someone told him last year this would be his life he probably would have laughed in their face and went on a very long rant about why he would _never_ date Tony Stark.

Times change.

“Of course I’m attracted to your intelligence, my entire social life relies on me dealing with a bunch of bullshit from people who don’t know anything, it’s monotonous. I make sure my personal life has none of that crap because at some point I actually want to enjoy being alive so I don’t really bother with people I don’t get some sort of intellectual joy from,” he says, threading his fingers through Steve’s.

*

Their relationship changes significantly, Steve notices, once Tony figures out his feelings. He’s sure Tony has noticed it but he hasn’t said anything and Steve was waiting for Tony to bring it up himself. If he brought something up too soon Tony would run off and avoid the subject for the next forever so it was best to let him come to Steve. He doesn’t mind the change, actually, it was surprisingly satisfying in a way he hadn’t known he’d needed.

Surprisingly it’s Clint that notices the change first, or he’s the first to bring it up at least. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” he says, throwing himself on Steve’s bed carelessly. His folded underwear go everywhere, including all over Clint but he just brushes them off nonchalantly.

“What is?” he asks, gathering his poor underwear off of the ground, his bed, and Clint.

“That feeling you have with Tony, the one you don’t really have a name for,” he says, “I kind of wanted a romantic relationship with someone before I started stealing Phil’s toilet paper, then we ended up… well we named it dating but it isn’t really that.” Steve snorts and laughs because Clint and Phil were an odd origin story; one of his favorites to talk about with other people because ‘he caught Clint stealing the toilet paper and was smitten’ is hilarious. Very Phil and Clint.

“Yeah, I know what you mean but I think Tony’s self-conscious. We’ve both noticed a change in the relationship and he’s probably thought up about a million and one reasons why I’ll leave him,” he says. He would never do such a thing, obviously, but Tony had more self-confidence issues than Steve had reassurance at the moment. He was sure Tony would bring it up eventually, he didn’t like unanswered questions and he was something of a masochist, those two things combined pretty much insured that Tony would mention the change in the tone of their relationship.

“You wouldn’t, right?” Clint says and there’s a protective edge to his voice. A glance at his ears tells Steve he isn’t wearing his hearing aids so he obviously can’t hear the accusatory tone.

He turns so that his face is more visible to Clint because it was obviously easier to read his lips that way, “no, of course not. I… to be honest I like the change, it’s… I’m not sure how to describe it. Different, maybe? That isn’t it; not really, point is I like the change to the relationship, I like that it’s a level of intimacy I didn’t even know I was capable of,” he says. It was similar to the way he felt about Bucky, they had never really been ‘just friends’, but it was more than that. There were a lot of limits to his and Bucky’s relationship that didn’t exist with Tony, and his feelings for Tony were not the same as what he and Bucky had. It was a different sort of relationship and he was perfectly content with that.

Clint grins at him, beaming really, “great, because I need someone to talk about my queer platonic buddy with and no one gets what Phil and I have. I don’t blame you guys, it isn’t like we have words for that feeling, but it is really annoying to get shoved into the romantic category when that isn’t really what we are,” he says. He hadn’t even known Phil was aromantic until Tony said something, which prompted him to ask Clint about it and he had felt bad when Clint said it was just easier to let them all assume he and Phil were dating. Apparently they had mentioned the queer platonic thing to someone when they first sorted out their feelings and were straight up told that didn’t exist and it hadn’t exactly inspired confidence.

“Yeah, that’s another thing I need to talk to Tony about,” he says. He probably should ask Tony how he wanted to categorize their relationship, if he wanted to put a name on it at all. “And sorry by the way, I shouldn’t have assumed anything about your relationship with Phil.”

“Whatever. Like I said before, it was easier that way,” Clint says.

“That doesn’t mean I should have made any assumptions about your relationship,” he says, “but if you have any tips for dealing with a self-conscious billionaire I would greatly appreciate the help.” Clint snorts and tells him that he doesn’t have the credentials to deal with Tony’s kind of crazy.

*

He finishes his damn thesis, finally, and Erskine thinks it’s good enough to win some prestigious award but it’s a humanities thesis, that wasn’t going to happen. Erskine insists he puts his thesis in anyways so he does to appease the man. “You have a lot of potential Steve, don’t waste it,” he says as Steve leaves his office. Steve doesn’t know what Erskine means by that but he ensures him that he wasn’t much interested in wasting potential.

Tony decides it’s a great idea to go to Malibu, except he finally figured out Steve wasn’t actually using that card he was given in Italy so he was probably in for a lecture. Pepper decides to come along though so instead of a lecture he gets Tony and Pepper fighting over the music. Tony insisted on his god-awful classic rock and Pepper insisted on just classical.

“JARVIS, play some Nicki Manaj,” he says finally and the AI readily throws on Bees in the Trap. Tony glares at him in the rear view mirror and Pepper turns around to outright stare him down, “what? You two wouldn’t shut up and I didn’t want to listen to either of your crap music tastes. Now you both suffer equally and I win,” he says.

“You know what, no; I will not tolerate this blasphemy in my own vehicle. JARVIS throw on One Direction, we all suffer that way,” Tony says and JARVIS obliges.

Steve’s phone buzzes and he looks down, finding a text from Pepper.

_Jokes on him I like 1D_

He snorts and texts back that he also had a guilty pleasure for One Direction so the only one suffering was Tony. The two of them agree to keep quiet about this until they get to their destination just to ensure Maximum Suffering has been inflicted. Tony looks fucking miserable the whole time while he and Pepper nod along to the beats, which only serves to irritate Tony more than the music. It was his own fault for thinking One Direction was a sufficient punishment before asking if everyone hated the band.

When they get to Malibu Pepper runs off to go organize Tony’s life while Tony ran off to his lab to finalize a few things, apologizing to Steve as he went. Steve didn’t much mind though because he got an opportunity to work on some art ideas he’s had floating around in his head for a while now and Happy was happy to drive him to get supplies, paid for by Tony at Tony’s insistence. He suspected there was going to be more on that card he had cut and tossed later but for now he left it alone in hopes that Tony would forget about it.

Its been a long time since he’s done any sort of art aside from the occasional drawing so it takes longer than it should to figure out what, exactly, he was trying to put on the canvas. He had a strong preference for abstract paintings, he liked the organized chaos, the feeling that the paint was everywhere but nowhere all at once. That didn’t make placement easy to figure out even when he had his ideas thought out and ready to paint. He stares at the blank canvas sitting on top of a sheet for a good hour before he finally picks up his brush and starts to paint.

*

Tony has never had much of an appreciation for art, it seemed meaningless and useless to him, but Pepper loved it so he was at least somewhat familiar. When he gets back from appeasing his Board of Assholes that SI was not, in fact, about to tank he finds Steve outside standing over a canvas with a streak of blue paint down his face contemplating. Out of curiosity more than anything he sticks around to see what Steve was up to. He doesn’t expect to be drawn in by Steve’s process, wandering closer to get a better look at what he was doing with his brushes.

He wasn’t sure what the hell he was looking at really, it was… well a mess honestly but it was far too structured to be considered accidental placement, or at least it looked purposeful considering the blank half. Maybe it would look more or less organized when Steve was actually done with it. Steve sits down, hunching over the left corner of the painting with a brush in his mouth, one in some paint, and another balanced on his leg, all with different colors on them while he tried to figure out what to do next. Slowly Tony starts to notice things, slight patterns to the work. His brain was accustomed to find patterns, part of being a mathematician and a genius, but it takes a bit longer for him to put together what the patterns _were_.

The painting had a dark background, or at least the painted half did, the other half was currently blank and Tony was curious to see what would go there. The patterns on the left were sort of… mechanical looking almost, like bits of machinery mixed in with the darkness behind it. The blue bits threw Tony off for an embarrassingly long time but he eventually works out that they’re holograms, like the ones in his lab. There were other bits he had yet to make sense of, like the red and yellow bits, but he assumed they would become relevant eventually.

After watching Steve paint for a while it occurs to Tony that painting was Steve’s equivalent to his lab, that this was essentially like standing in the middle of his diary as he wrote things down. It was oddly intimate, more so considering Steve hadn’t even noticed his presence or he hadn’t acknowledged it at least.

Tony knew what it was like to be that absorbed in your work, it was how he felt about every project he had. People liked to make comments about him being in it for the money, or that his bottom line was all he cared about but that was bullshit. His tech was his life, he poured himself into every project he had, every piece of tech he created was individual and unique in a way that only he understood.

He loathed the way the older generation, namely people his age or older, shamed the younger for the use of tech because they just didn’t get it so they insulted something they didn’t understand. They didn’t get that people weren’t just staring at a light box, or a computer, or whatever else. Technology was an extension of their humanity, they used those things to reach into the world, reach out to other people, in a way that was often impossible to do in really life. Screen names and anonymity gave people a space to be more themselves than they could in real life, it gave them a space to be free from society’s constraints, to share in a way that often didn’t translate to the physical world.

Art was Steve’s version of technology, his own way to move his humanity outside of his body, his way of sharing a bit of himself with those around him and Tony was struck by how beautiful that was. The way Steve mixed colors, painted bits and pieces of the things that were around him, making something out of nothing but his own mind exactly like Tony did with his own work. He still had no fucking clue what he was supposed to be looking at, what it meant, but he knew it meant something important because people didn’t spend time on things that weren’t important. Things that they didn’t love, cherish.

Steve starts on the other side and Tony frowns because the slathered on red and yellow looked fucking awful compared to the detail of the other side but he keeps quiet, assuming there was a plan in place. Or at least he hoped because if not the whole thing would be ruined by one side looking like a masterpiece and the other looking like a bad kindergarten painting.

Thankfully Steve didn’t seem to be done with it and Tony got to see how things with the other side must have progressed before he showed up to lurk. Despite the rough start it quickly progresses into something… not crappy. Steve pulls elements from the other side over, bits of that darkness, the designs, some of the hologram images. But the right side had its own elements too, like the fact that it was so much brighter, the inexplicable math equations painted in white, some other things that Tony didn’t get at the moment.

It takes a long time for Steve to straighten up, the bones in his back cracking as he does and Tony winces because that sounded kind of painful. Steve makes a noise of contentment though so Tony assumes that was not as painful as it sounded. He blinks himself back into focus and frowns when he finds Tony standing there, “how long have you been there?” he asks. Tony looks around, squinting at the setting sun because that wasn’t there two minutes ago.

“Longer than I thought, the sun was in the middle of the sky when I came out here,” he says. How long _was_ he standing there? And since when did he ever stand still that long for any reason? He loathed standing still, it meant he wasn’t being productive and he hated not being productive because that gave him too much time to think.

Steve’s eyebrows draw together, “that’s weird, usually I have trouble painting around other people. I always hated art classes where profs would loom over your back and judge your work when they didn’t even know where it was going,” he says, wrinkling his nose. Tony got that, really, he hated being in workshops in MIT because his teachers would do the same thing, except that was usually followed up with telling him his idea was impossible. Eventually they learned not to tell Tony things were impossible because then he’d make it possible just to spite them. Like that asshole prof who told him Dummy’s coding would never work, which wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t been trying to crush a thirteen year old’s dreams.

Just to be an asshole he’s mailed that douchebag a copy of Dummy’s fully functioning code every day since the bot came to life twenty four years ago. Take that, Richards.

“Well I’m flattered,” he says, holding out his hand to help Steve off the ground.

“Oh thank god I was not looking forward to peeling myself off of your deck,” he says, letting Tony pull him up.

“The painting looks nice; I can’t believe you got it done in a day though. That’s a lot of detail,” he says, looking the painting over.

Steve squints at him, “have you suddenly lost your eye sight? It isn’t even close to being done, I just got most of the bare bones down,” he says.

That was a fuckload of detail for ‘bare bones’ in Tony’s opinion. “How much more detail can you add, the whole canvas is full,” he says.

“Yeah but its flat, there’s no life there, it’s just some paint slathered on canvas at the moment,” Steve says. It was pretty fucking clear to Tony that they were on completely different pages because he had no clue what Steve was talking about. The painting had plenty of life to him, the hologram things almost popped off the canvas, especially on the darker side, and the bright side was so… _lively_. Not that the other side wasn’t, but not in the same way. The left side struck Tony as far more robotic despite the technological designs carrying over to the brighter side; it just lacked the personality that the red and yellow had.

“I think you might be the one with eye problems because I see plenty of action here,” he says, tilting his head to the side as if that would help him see Steve’s point. It didn’t help whatsoever.

Steve sighs, “technically I do need glasses but that isn’t the problem here. Think of it as a prototype, you’ve got the necessary components but it still needs a lot of work,” he says. He’d argue, except he knows that that wasn’t going to get him anywhere because the reverse of this argument went exactly nowhere too.

“If you insist,” he says, “but I don’t know how that can get better when it already looks great.”

*

“So, about that card you cut and tossed,” Tony says and Steve groans, wishing desperately that he hadn’t decided to take a break from his painting.

“Leave it, Tony,” he says, picking up his glass of juice in the hopes that he could escape before Tony handed him another shiny new card.

“No, I will not leave it,” Tony says, stepping in front of him, “I will manage to give you access to my money somehow, you might as well just accept it.” Tony looks like he’s ready to fight Steve on this and he didn’t doubt that Tony just might out stubborn him on this. He did manage to out stubborn him on the apartment thing but the shower pressure.

“I don’t want your money, Tony,” he says, “but I would appreciate if you gave up on that damn meme of me sighing. Honestly I have no idea why people even find it funny,” he says, letting out a long sigh that he doesn’t see the irony in until Tony starts laughing. “Give up on the meme,” he says, one hand planted on his hip in annoyance.

“I’ll give up on the meme if you take the card,” Tony says, waving a shiny new card that he pulled out of thin air around. Great, so it was listen to Tony laugh at all the compilation videos of him sighing or feel guilty for carrying around a piece of plastic-

Or he could just take the card and never use it, that way Tony would stop playing those damn videos of him sighing and he’d stop whining and crying about the damn card. “Fine,” he says, reaching out to take the card but Tony holds it back.

“I can practically see what you thought was a sneaky plan, you have to use it or suffer listening to yourself sigh over the surround sound speakers,” Tony says, looking triumphant.

He sighs again, earning an amused laugh from Tony, “is this really that important?” he asks. Why Tony was pressing this issue of all issues he had no idea, even if he did appreciate that Tony was trying to do something good for him.

“Yes, making sure that you have the proper resources to take care of yourself is important to me,” Tony says and he sounds almost offended that Steve had asked.

“But you’ve already done that,” he points out. At first they had all thought that someone else was buying groceries until Peter asked Gamora to pick up some brand of chips when she went out next, which led to her telling him that she wasn’t doing the grocery shopping. Peter had assumed she had been because all of his favorite foods were always in the house and he liked some weird shit.

He assumed maybe Clint was buying the food then because Clint had weird tastes too but Clint denied it, which led to everyone figuring out that no one was buying the food and yet all of their favorite stuff was always there. Next up on the interrogation list was Phil but he hadn’t been buying food either, which left Tony, and it was pretty easy to figure out that JARVIS, via the Roomba, was gathering information on their likes and dislikes when it came to food.

Peter though that was cool as fuck, Clint was disturbed and asked JARVIS if he knew what porn Clint watched too. Bucky, Natasha, and Gamora decided it was a good idea to put in requests despite Steve’s insistence that this was largely unnecessary. Of course everyone else disagreed so he was over ruled and now he wondered what else Tony had done without any of them noticing.

“No, I’ve predicted your basic needs,” Tony says, “I can’t predict every need you’ll have or how much it’ll cost and I want to make sure that you’ll be okay.” He looks worried, like he almost anticipated something crappy was going to happen and Steve would like to think that was ridiculous but he did have a considerably crappy past with health.

“That’s sweet, Tony, but I was fine before and I’ll be fine now,” he says. He appreciated Tony’s efforts but it’s been some time since he’s last had a problem health-wise, which made this whole thing ridiculous and unnecessary.

Tony snorts, “no you weren’t and you’re so damn stubborn you haven’t even noticed the differences,” he says, “I figured your clothes would have been the first hint but you are so damn blind to all things you that you didn’t notice that either.” Notice what was his first reaction and he didn’t realize he said it out loud until Tony tells him to go look in a mirror and actually look.

He didn’t know what that was supposed to mean but he listened if for no other reason than to appease Tony. At first glance nothing has changed but if he was honest he didn’t spend much time looking in mirrors so he follows Tony’s advice and lingers on the image a little. He didn’t actually expect to see a change; Tony was pretty dramatic after all, so he’s more than a little surprise to notice that he’s gained much needed weight.

“I… don’t look like I have the body of a twelve year old anymore,” he says, frowning. When the hell had that happened? Tony was right, the fact that his clothes actually fit should have been a pretty good indicator that something had changed. He was still small, obviously, but he at least looked like he had finally grown into his own body, and the pair of jeans he was wearing being just a tad too small gave him a great ass.

“You didn’t look twelve to begin with,” Tony says, “but really, how am I supposed to not worry about you when you’re so blind to your body’s needs that you didn’t even notice when that your body started to get the things it needed? Namely a steady diet and a better living environment,” he says, pulling Steve into his arms. He goes willingly, curling into Tony’s chest half to comfort Tony half to comfort himself. He felt like he should have noticed these things but it was hard, sometimes, to pay attention to himself when he didn’t much like what he saw. In hindsight he had had more energy lately, which had made finishing his thesis that much easier, and it explained his renewed interest in art. He actually had the energy to do it now.

“I think Bucky’s been throwing out the sweaters that don’t fit anymore, I can’t find most of them,” he says. He was absolutely going to confront his best friend about this when he got home because he wanted those sweaters back, damnit, even if they were too small. His jeans had all been tighter too but Bucky was terrible at laundry, he assumed that his stuff just shrunk in the drier or something.

Tony snorts, “really, it’s the sweaters you’re worried about?” he asks, amused.

“Yes, those sweaters are my children and you can’t throw children in the trash, that’s mean,” he says. He didn’t throw Bucky’s ratty t-shirts in the trash; the fact that Natasha did it for him was irrelevant.

“Well Bucky cares more about you than your sweaters, you should be flattered. Please take care of yourself though,” Tony says softly, obviously worried.

Steve pulls back a little, “you too, Tony, how often do you even sleep? Because I’m pretty sure you’re currently on day three awake and I don’t know when you last ate so I doubt you do,” he says. Dummy at least did a good job of beeping in worry at Tony until he got annoyed enough to drink something but that was usually coffee or some other stimulant rather than water.

Tony half smiles, “I’m used to it,” he says.

“I was used to being half dead all the time and you don’t want me to go back to that,” he points out, “so please follow your own advice and we can both give each other a piece of mind.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so technically this is the last chapter, the next is just a series of 'deleted scenes' if you will. I liked them enough to write out and didn't want to write a series of one shots so I just added on to this :)

 “Steve said we were supposed to bond,” Bucky says in an almost accusatory tone, as if he was being made to do this and Tony knew flat out that wasn’t true.

“I… don’t think this is what he meant,” he says for lack of something better.

“Fine then, I’ll ask Clint,” Bucky says, half turning away before Tony called him back.

“Fine, fine, but you get to deal with Steve, I wanna live,” he says. If this was what Bucky and Natasha wanted that was their prerogative, but he was not going to have Steve skin him because Bucky decided this was an appropriate form of bonding.

And he thought he had some weird friends.

*

Steve is curled up under his arm sketching something that hadn’t quite formed yet. Tony watches out of the corner of his eye as he goes over numbers again so the Board would stop chewing his ass for shit he had no control over. He’s distracted though, restless, but he doesn’t want to move and jostle Steve. That left him with two options; one, deal with the crap for the Board that should have only taken a half an hour at best, or just deal with the damn problem. Pepper and Rhodey had already put their two cents in but he didn’t want to deal with the problem, he wanted to never ever deal with the problem again.

But the problem with avoiding the problem was that he was living the damn problem.

“Spit it out, Stark,” Steve says eventually, putting his pencil down and twisting just a bit so he could properly face Tony.

He sighs because if Steve has noticed that meant he wasn’t going to let Tony just avoid it anymore. “Do you feel it?” he asks, purposefully being as vague as possible.

“Feel what?” Steve asks because he was a sadist hell bent on making Tony suffer. God, what an insane exaggeration, no wonder Bucky thought sexual attraction was made up.

“The change in our relationship,” he says vaguely. Read; this shit went real platonic real fast please don’t leave me I love you still.

“Yeah, what about it?” Steve asks, smiling just a bit.

“God, you are a sadist,” Tony mumbles and Steve laughs.

“If I had a problem with the relationship I would have told you, Tony, that’s what people in relationships do. They communicate,” he says. He was going to be some pissed off at Bucky then because his communication skills were crappy and Tony was not looking forward to being flayed alive due to Bucky’s negligence.

“Okay but… but…” he starts but he doesn’t know where he’s going with that. Actually no, he knew exactly where he was going with that but he didn’t want to say it out loud and give Steve ideas if he hadn’t already thought of them.

“I like our relationship better now,” Steve says, “before I don’t think either one of us realized how hard you were trying to throw a romantic spin on things and you’ve stopped that. It makes things feel more… authentic.” He means it too, Tony knew, because when Steve believed something everyone knew it. That was yet another thing Tony had realized had attracted him to Steve in the first place once he started separating attractions.

His whole life he’s been eyebrow deep in business bullshit, family problems, and an inability to connect with his peers. In short everyone was constantly faking it for everyone else’s benefit. When he met Steve, though, he hadn’t gone back on his opinions on him as soon as he realized he was actually taking to Tony about Tony. Instead he chose to call Tony out and he hadn’t realized it at the time but it was a breath of fresh air, avoiding the bullshit like that, and to make things better Steve did take back his assessment as soon as he had information that rendered his own opinion useless.

He didn’t want that to go away, that ability to talk to someone point blank without judgement. Sure, he’d still have Rhodey and Pep but they weren’t the same, there wasn’t that something… extra that made them desirable life partners. Rhodey was still having a hard time grasping that, the idea of a life partner without the romance, but Pepper had gotten what he was talking about right away so at least there was that. Both of them were supportive regardless, Rhodey just happened to ask more questions.

“Really?” he asks, “because I don’t want you to like… suffer or something,” he says, putting words to his feelings even if he didn’t want to.

Steve sighs and Tony can’t help but laugh because that meme was hilarious. Steve had made so many faces in that video of him explaining the American voting system, and more importantly that he was not running for president, that there was a good amount of reaction gifs floating around. The one where Steve looked like a frightened eagle was Tony’s favorite, especially because Steve was born on the fourth of July. “Stop that, the meme isn’t even funny,” Steve says grumpily, “and you aren’t making me suffer, that’s ridiculous. I like our relationship just the way it is and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he says.

“Are you sure? Because I don’t want you to miss out or whatever,” he says. What he didn’t want was for Steve to wake up one day and realize that he’s wasted a bunch of time with Tony because this wasn’t what he wanted and that he hated his life, and Tony. He wasn’t entirely certain he could survive that and he sure as hell didn’t want to test it out. He’d feel some bad for poor Pepper and Rhodey having to pick up whatever was left over of his heart if that happened.

“Tony,” Steve says, gently squeezing his arm, “romance isn’t a requisite for happiness, not for me anyways. I’m perfectly content with what I have, I’m not ‘missing out’ or somehow lacking, my relationship needs are fulfilled by you and my friends. You aren’t giving me some lesser form of love just because it isn’t romantic in nature, I’ve been in romantic love, this isn’t some step down from that,” Steve says earnestly.

It was weird how Steve could almost… project his feelings outwards, that his beliefs were so strong that everyone around him felt what he did. He could see why someone as anxious as Bucky was drawn to Steve, or someone as emotionally empty as Natasha though she’d never admit it out loud. Tony knew the signs though, he’s been there, and it was pretty obvious that Steve was like some emotional drain cure because he seemed to fix everyone around him by just existing. Even Rhodey and Pepper felt that in the limited time they’ve spent with Steve.

But he doesn’t focus on any of that because he doesn’t really have the words to describe what he was feeling, not in a way that would do the feeling any justice anyway. “You’re… not in romantic love with me?” he asks, frowning. That hadn’t occurred to him in all the mental calculations he had run and of course it wouldn’t have, Steve Rogers had thrown him for a loop at every turn since they first met.

Steve shrugs, “I was but it’s sort of… I don’t know, grown out of that? It’s like the feelings I had got bigger somehow, moved into uncharted territory. You know when you’re watching a movie and there’s a car scene with the two people driving alone on a road into the sun set with the top down smiling while string instruments play in the background and the world looks like it’s in sepia? It’s like that, except it’s a feeling instead of an image,” he says wistfully, clearly lost in his own description, his own feelings.

Yeah, Tony knew exactly what Steve was talking about except Steve put that feeling to words much better than he’d be able to. “Yeah okay Shakespeare,” is what comes out though and Steve rolls his eyes at him fondly, smacking his chest.

“You ruined my moment,” he accuses.

“Please, I am your moment,” he says cockily and Steve snorts.

“As if, I’m your moment,” Steve says and yeah, Tony couldn’t deny that. He wasn’t one to ascribe to the ‘soul mate’ logic, mostly because there was no logic to soul mates, but if he had to choose someone to be his soul mate it’d be Steve. Then Rhodey then Pepper, mostly because Rhodey was more accustomed to suffering with Tony’s shit than Pepper, who really did deserve better than being his assistant.

*

Bucky walks into the living room looking harassed, “so apparently texting your mother ‘guess who got married!’ is not the correct way to inform her that you’re married now,” he says and Steve sits straight up, ignoring Tony’s protests as he does so.

“What?” he asks, “when the hell did you get married? Why the hell wasn’t I there- Tony where are you going?” he asks as Tony does his best to try and slink off. He looks far too guilty for Steve’s liking and being under Steve’s scrutiny seems to have made him look even more like a scolded puppy.

“You told us to bond!” Tony says in his own defense.

Steve glares at Bucky, “you best have a good explanation for this,” he says.

“Told you we should have invited him,” Natasha sing-songs.

“It was a civil ceremony, Nat, it barely even counts, and we just wanted tax benefits. And I wanted your last name but still-” he probably would have continued with his shitty excuses but Steve cuts him off.

“You didn’t invite me to your wedding?” he asks, furious.

“It doesn’t even count, Stevie, it was in City Hall and it smelled like cheap beer and piss but that might have been Tony,” he says.

“You didn’t invite me to your wedding but you invited Tony?” he asks, turning to glare at Tony, who squeaks and looks around for an escape. “Well what’s your excuse?” he asks once Tony realizes he was trapped.

“Peer pressure, I wanted nothing to do with this but Bucky said we needed to bond and I don’t want your best friend to hate me because then you’ll leave me so I figured what the fuck, why not?” he says in a panic.

Steve turns back to glare at Bucky, who was now looking at the ground sheepishly, “no such pressure was there,” he mumbles.

“Dirty liar,” Nat says without even looking up from her phone.

“You’re a terrible wife,” Bucky says back, upset that she ratted him out.

“Oh goody me, I’ve finally achieved my life’s goal of being a terrible wife! Now to kill you and go make some other man miserable,” she says dramatically, cackling wildly, “then I’ll have completed my life’s goal of being known as a Black Widow.” Bucky lets out a sigh that was thankfully not him mimicking that fucking meme his friends loved so much. It was worse because his first reaction was to roll his eyes and sigh, which led to Gamora and Peter making compilation videos of him sighing at the sigh meme, which became a whole new meme.

“You know what, Tony and I are getting married and you aren’t invited,” Steve says, deciding that he was going to be a petty asshole.

“We are?” Tony asks, frowning.

“Hell yeah we are, just so Bucky knows what a dick move that was. Fucking invite Tony to your wedding but not me, god damn asshole,” he mumbles to himself. He’d get Phil to plan the details with Pepper, the two would make quick work of the task, and Clint can do the cake testing because he actually had great taste in cake.

“Who’s gunna be your best man?” Bucky asks and the asshole has the audacity to look upset.

“Peter, because it would be hilarious to watch him get super wasted, forget his entire speech, and then tell some long convoluted story about training velociraptors or some shit,” he says. He was actually kind of serious about that, Peter’s drunk rants were the best and he would absolutely love whatever butchering he did to his best man speech.

“But I should be your best man,” Bucky says sadly.

“Well that’s what you get for not inviting me to your wedding,” Steve says, sticking his nose in the air.

“How’d you mom take it?” Natasha asks, interrupting an argument that was bound to go in circles.

Bucky rubs his temples, “she yelled at me for not inviting her, then yelled at me some more for taking your last name, then went back to yelling about not being invited. She didn’t take it too well when I told her that Tony was the witness and not Steve so I got yelled at for disrespecting him too,” he says.

“Damn right, I can’t believe you invited Tony and not me,” he says.

“It was a civil ceremony and we did it for tax benefits, I didn’t think anyone would want to be part of our mostly meaningless wedding,” he mumbles, glaring at the floor.

“What’d you tell your mom?” Nat asks.

“Well after I told her that I married you and not Steve, I can’t believe she asked who I married, I told her that being upset was useless now, I can’t get unmarried. Well I mean I can but I’m not getting a divorce so I can invite people to the damn wedding. The last name thing pissed her off because if Becca gets married no one gets my asshat father’s last name, which was the point, but whatever. Anyways I said that Romanov’s are technically royalty and when I was a child I always wanted to be a Disney princess so she should be happy that I have come as close to achieving that childhood dream as possible,” he says. Steve wanted to stay mad but that was one of the most Bucky Barnes things he has ever heard in his life, well, Bucky Romanov he guessed.

He starts laughing and Bucky looks so relieved that Steve didn’t appear to be mad anymore. In all honestly Steve probably would have done the same thing so even though he was hurt that Bucky invited Tony to his wedding but not him he couldn’t really hold it against him for long. He’d harass Bucky about that later, when he was busy not inviting Bucky to his wedding that he was absolutely having out of spite now.

“Oh good, you’re not mad, I told Pepper we’re getting married because Bucky didn’t invite you to his wedding so you decided that you weren’t inviting him to yours. I don’t know if her sighing was because she thought that was absurd or because she was imitating that meme but I decided not to ask,” Tony says. He was holding Bucky’s shiny new prosthetic arm, which meant that at some point he did manage to sneak out unnoticed but Steve decides to let him off this time.

“I wasn’t mad at you anyways, you have abandonment issues, Bucky’s a jackass who is still not invited to my wedding-out-of-spite,” he says. Tony looks relieved at this revelation and Steve smiles at him just so he knew that Steve was not, in fact, mad at Tony. He turns back to Bucky, “when did you get married, exactly?” he asks.

“Last week,” Bucky says.

“You got married a week ago and no one told me!” he yells, flailing his arms around.

“I left it to Bucky because it’s his wedding, his responsibility,” Tony says, throwing Bucky under the bus immediately.

*

“I’m a cyborg,” Bucky says, waving his metal arm around in some sort of weird interpretive dance type style.

“You’re an idiot,” Gamora says, “now get out of the kitchen so I can cook in peace.” Bucky obliges, moving out of her way with no less than five arm waves while he did so. Steve wasn’t sure what got more press in the last three days, Bucky’s arm being a technological breakthrough of epic proportions, Tony being aromantic, Tony getting married, or the affair Steve was supposedly having with Sam. Bucky, at least, loved the arm and it was comfortable enough that he regularly fell asleep with the prosthetic still on. That alone was a huge improvement to his last arm, which had been pinch-y and uncomfortable when awake let along asleep.

“Walking sci-fi,” Bucky says, continuing to wave his arm around. Tony had done a great job making the movements look human, and more so at calibrating the movements the arm made to move naturally with the rest of Bucky’s body. Tony had intended to put some sort of skin-like sleeve over it but Bucky thought the metal was badass so he left it, even if it seemed to cause him actual pain to leave the project ‘unfinished’.

“Walking stupidity more like,” Gamora says, “but you’re still smarter than the press, even if you keep insisting on waving that arm around like a demented flower or something. Honestly, first you were sleeping with Natasha, then Sam, who’s next? Bucky?” she asks Steve, rolling her eyes.

“Sam’s having fun with it,” Steve says. He had teamed up with Natasha to spread rumors like wildfire and they thought it was great. Tony had tweeted that no, Steve was not sleeping with Sam, but if he was it was most certainly a threesome. Sam had taken that and ran with it like a delighted child with a donut he wasn’t supposed to have while Steve chased after him to retrieve said donut.

“I know we’re all friends, and that’s why I feel like I can say this. Please stop fake sleeping with us before you actually start running that harem Sam invented for funsies,” Gamora says.

“I wanna be in a harem, that sounds awesome!” Peter says excitedly, appearing at the most inopportune time.

“You’re going to have to be on the receiving end of butt stuff,” Gamora warns, grinning.

“And?” Peter asks, arms spread wide, unashamed.

“Should have bought that strap on,” she mumbles and Bucky stops waving his arm around to give her a grossed out look.

“You should get the sex toy equivalent of Bucky’s arm,” Peter says and Bucky makes a gagging noise before fleeing the scene, poor thing.

“Don’t be a jackass,” Steve reprimands lightly.

“I wasn’t, I wanna buy Stark sex toys,” Peter says seriously. Gamora pauses at the stove for a minute before bolting out of the room shouting for Natasha.

“We need dildos!” she yells, “get Stark on the phone, I want a vibe that’ll last!”

Steve sighs as Natasha squeals in delight, agreeing to call Tony. “Guess you’ll get those sex toys,” he says to Peter, who flees the room so he could go put in his own requests that Steve had no doubt would probably scar him for life. He figures he was best left with the food anyways.

*

Sam shakes his head at Rhodey in wonder, “you let him do your hair? Brave man,” he says, shaking his head. Tony looks offended, more so when Rhodey nods along gravely.

“I looked like a mess for a year, it was a dark time but Tony got the hang of black hair eventually,” he says.

“I would not let that happen to me man, you get props for being the bravest man I know,” Sam says.

“You did not look like a fool for a year!” Tony says, hand pressed to his heart in offense.

“I looked exactly like I thought I would if I let a white dude do my hair, which was like a fool,” Rhodey says.

“You looked fine,” Tony insists.

“Yeah, eventually,” Rhodey says, “but in the meantime I looked like my hair got a bad blowout, I had to dateless because you liked brushing my hair and I didn’t want to crush your poor little white heart by telling you that you had no clue how to handle natural hair. You did eventually figure out that that your flat ass white hair rules did not apply to my hair and my hair did stop looking like shit though so I mean I guess it paid off. Then I had shave it all off when I went into the military, I miss my hair,” Rhodey says, running his hand over his bald scalp.

“I miss your hair too, I loved brushing it,” Tony says, squinting at Rhodey’s scalp as if it had personally offended Tony’s delicate sensibilities.

“I maintain that you are a good person, too good for this world if you seriously walked around looking like a jackass for a year before Tony figured out how to handle the curls,” Sam says.

“You know what, I could handle the hair, what I had a hard time handling was Tony’s obsession with florescent things and glow sticks. Fucking everything glowed, how the hell was I supposed to sleep with fifty glow sticks glued to the ceiling. And Tony, just so you know, florescent anything is not your colour, please never go through that phase again,” he says.

“Was it worse than the frosted tips?” Tony asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing is worse than the frosted tips,” Sam assures him. Clint nods vigorously behind him and Phil does that nose-wrinkle thing he did when someone did something he considered unpleasant. Tony looks at Bucky, who looks away because apparently he couldn’t even give Tony a silent reassurance without feeling guilty for it. The frosted tips were horrible, in Bucky’s defense.

“Actually Florescent Glow Stick Phase was worse than the frosted tips, frosted tips was the refined version of the hell that came before it,” Rhodey says. Everyone, Steve included, gives Tony a pitying look after that because that was just too depressing for words. Steve didn’t even want to think about what could have looked worse than Tony with horribly faded red frosted tips that looked more like rust than hair. The bleach blonde wasn’t a better look either, and neither was its bastard twin Weird Florescent Yellow.

“Not as bad as Steve’s whiskers, or his Naruto phase, or his Batman and Superman are always kissing phase,” Tony says indignantly.

“I thought the whiskers were cute,” Bucky says, valiantly defending Steve’s honor.

“You need a psych eval,” Tony says and Bucky chucks a pillow at his head.

“You’re getting married so Steve can spite me, I’m not the one who needs his head checked,” Bucky says. Steve glares at him for that but Bucky looks unrepentant.

“No offense but anyone who thought florescent pink peg warmers were a wearable item under any circumstance needs their head checked. That was directed at you Tony, don’t you look at Steve,” Rhodey chastises, shaking his head.

“Oh, you haven’t seen the I Think I’m a Unicorn Phase? Well have I got a treat for you,” Tony says, grinning as he chose to embarrass Steve in front of everyone minus Bucky, who had been there for that phase.

Embarrassing phases during the teen years aside mingling friend groups got along well, especially Sam and Rhodey, who ended up trading ‘what stupid shit did your dumb white boy do’ stories. Tony won by a long shot but to be fair Steve hadn’t had access to the kind of cash it would have required to cause Tony’s level of damage.

Rhodey and Gamora ended up bonding over fighting moves even if poor Rhodey ate floor a good seven times before he accepted defeat to a twenty-something without all his training. She told him not to feel too bad, she had taken a plethora of self-defense courses as a child to vent her rage out on something and she had enough of it to kick her teacher’s asses without the training let alone with it.

Peter and Tony had bonded for about three seconds when they had agreed that music now sucked, but completely disagreed on what music was ‘good’. Peter was a seventies guy, everything afterwards was shit in his opinion, which had greatly offended Tony because eighties classic rock all the way. Pepper informed them that they were both wrong, classical music was clearly the best music and Natasha agreed.

Natasha actually had a thing for horrible pop songs with little to no meaning at all but she had been keen on bonding with Pepper for pranking purposes. She also wanted to follow through on that literal bath bomb vine and she figured she had a better chance at surviving Pepper if there was bonding beforehand. Steve had given both her and Tony strict warnings to not do go through with the literal bath bomb vine under any circumstances.

“Are you seriously going to get married to spite Bucky?” Peggy asks, “I know it’s something you would absolutely do but really? At least tell me you aren’t actually going to not invite Bucky; you’d crush the poor guy’s heart.”

“Obviously I’m actually inviting Bucky,” Steve says, “but I figured I’d let him squirm a little. He hasn’t really taken the threat that seriously anyways. And no, I’m not marrying Tony out of spite, well, not completely out of spite. He doesn’t want the Board to fuck me over if something happens to him and apparently marriage makes that harder to do so this is mostly for Tony’s piece of mind.” They had an actual discussion about it, one that Tony actually started rather than fleeing until he couldn’t run anymore, and Steve was proud. He was starting to settle much more nicely into their relationship despite the media making a loud racket about the impossibility of a queer platonic relationship.

Tony’s responses were gold though. So far Steve had three top favorite incidents. The first was the ‘special snowflake’ bullshit reporters threw at Tony when he had first tweeted himself out of the metaphorical closet. With Tony it was all or nothing and coming out in a tweet seemed like a good idea to him, apparently, and apparently it also made him a special snowflake. Tony had told everyone he was a special snowflake long before he figured out he was aromantic and told them to keep up, also via tweet.

Incident two was when he had done an interview for some talk show, Steve refused because he knew it would just end in him being infuriated, which was true. But the host asked if Tony’s relationship with Steve was romantic of platonic, to which Tony said ‘no’ in such a flat annoyed voice that for a moment the host didn’t know what to do.

The last was from the same interview as incident two because that guy was particularly stupid and insisted on irritating Tony by claiming that their relationship was just a ‘strong friendship’. Tony had promptly told him that was false and that his inability to understand their relationship was not because it didn’t exist in the way they explained it, it was because he was either too stupid to comprehend it or too ignorant to try. That had actually beat out Tony’s bullshit ‘genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist’ line in infamy and Steve was thrilled.

Christine was also thrilled because Tony had been giving her plenty to write about and the woman was a master with words and manipulation. Her ability to romanticize the aromantic was nothing short of impressive, and she had let Steve edit the articles so she got her descriptions of the relationship right. He let her take all the credit though because she had been working hard to curb the media away from the idea that Tony was just looking for attention, mostly by pointing out his being aromantic was literally the least interesting thing about him. He may not have been impressed that he had to keep the real origin story of his and Tony’s relationship to himself but Christine had been doing a great job at holding up her end of the bargain so he didn’t complain too much.

“Well good,” Peggy says, “I am not peeling Bucky’s heartbroken ass off my floor like I had to when he and Natasha started dating and you got all weird. And Sam says he isn’t either, and god knows Wanda is not qualified to deal with anyone’s mental health issues, please don’t platonically break his heart.”

Steve snorts, “I’ll let him know he’s invited when everyone goes home,” he says.

*

He’s trying to get Luis and Scott back on track once again but his efforts have been fruitless so they end up talking about the art, as usual. Steve mentions off-hand that he painted something new, which comes as a surprise to Luis and Scott because he hasn’t painted anything in a long time. They ask to see it and he’s thankfully he actually kept the picture of the thing on his phone to show them. He hated it, it hadn’t turned out anything like what he had envisioned and despite Tony’s weird obsession with it he hadn’t been able to change Steve’s mind. It wasn’t surprising though because it has been a long time since he’s painted anything and he figured the first go at making something was bound to go badly as he re-adjusted to the learning curve.

The painting was a lost cause as far as he was concerned but Scott and Luis look as enraptured by the stupid thing as Tony was. “Dude, this is beautiful,” Luis says, Scott nodding in agreement.

“It’s like… logic and creativity at war,” Scott says and Luis takes a step back to give him an offended look.

“No man, this is logic and creativity working together, they’re all intermingled and shit. The painting makes it clear that these two things are really one thing and they influence one another, not that they’re separate and fighting,” he says in an offended tone that matches his facial expression. They promptly start bickering and Steve goes over their list of things to do, crossing off what’s already been done while Luis and Scott battle it out.

“What are they fighting about now? Better not be that damn vagina,” his boss says, looking unimpressed.

“They’re arguing about my painting means,” he says. Luis was right, logic and creativity were never meant to be separated, logic and emotion were supposed to play into one another and that was what the painting depicted. He didn’t tell them that though because their arguments were amusing, especially because Luis was just so much better at art than Scott was. The man knew his shit

His boss raises an eyebrow, “you painted something? It’s been awhile if memory serves,” she says.

He nods, “yeah, it has, and it shows,” he says.

“Mind if I take a look at it?” she asks. He shrugs and directs her to his phone, which was still in Luis’ hand as he explained the parts of the painting to Scott, who still disagreed despite Luis’ solid argument. He makes plans for further art moving and cleaning while she looks at the painting. Luis, the sorry soul, practically throws the phone at her out of fear and takes a couple steps back. Honestly he didn’t see why everyone was so afraid of her, she was nice enough, she just didn’t take much shit.

If it wasn’t for her interrupting his mental notes he probably wouldn’t have noticed her reaction. “Are you willing to sell this?” she asks.

“Sure, I guess. I have no clue who would buy that though,” he says honestly. He had such high hopes and it fell flat on its metaphorical face.

“I have a few people in mind,” she says excitedly, walking a few steps before turning back and handing Steve’s phone back to him.

“O…kay,” he says slowly as his boss all but runs off to make whatever phone calls she deemed necessary. “We’re going to have to move the vagina sculpture again so we can make room for the other stuff,” he tells Scott and Luis. This sparks Round Two of ‘I know art better than you’ as they get into a debate about the vagina’s meaning.

*

Steve had no clue how his life got so weird. Clint sticks his number on a stall and Tony calls, which leads to a whirlwind relationship, Tony discovering he was aromantic, Wanda getting some accidental closure, Bucky and Natasha bonding over catfishing the press, and Peggy punching reporters. To be fair Peggy got a job for her efforts and she was enthused that hanging out with Steve now earned her a wage given that she was now his appointed body guard.

Better than some stranger, which was what Tony had initially planned after the media had gone hog wild over some stupid untrue rumor yet again. Phil had ended up the backup body guard when Tony found a video of Phil from his crazy college days that none of them were aware that he had that starred him taking down an entire bar full of people twice his size.

Clint had been pretty fucking impressed, but they were all more impressed with Phil’s best friend, whom they also didn’t know existed, Melinda. Phil had been pretty frightening but Melinda had stolen the show with her impressive ability to beat the hell out of people.

Even Gamora was impressed and she was not the easily impressable type, especially when it came to fighting because she’s an expert. They obviously confront Phil with this because seriously, until Tony found that video and offered him a high paying job making sure Steve didn’t die they had no clue Phil Coulson could fight.

Phil smiles and hums happily, “I miss those days,” he says much to everyone’s surprise.

“What?” Clint asks, squinting, “I thought you were a harmless dad-type, seriously man, you even looked like a middle-aged dad in high school, I’ve seen the year book pictures! Why the hell you would you beat up a bar full of people?” he asks.

“Haven’t you ever felt the need to just… beat the shit out of someone?” Phil asks, pleasant smile still fixed in place.

“No,” Clint, Bucky, and Peter say in sync. At the same time Natasha, Gamora, Peggy, and Steve say, “yes”.

“Fine, at least half of you will get it then. Melinda got it, we worked so well together,” Phil says wistfully and Clint looks so offended by this. “When we got stressed we’d find the shittiest bar within walking distance, walk in, and insult everyone until they decided to throw punches and then the fun started. It was so cathartic to break people’s noses and because most of them were criminals they never called the cops. Also most of them ended up unconscious,” he says with a smile still on his face. If Steve didn’t know any better he would have assumed Phil was talking about baking an apple pie, not beating the hell out of shady criminals in a seedy bar for fun.

“So… you used to beat up entire bars full of people to blow off stress?” Clint asks, bewildered. Phil hums the affirmative and Gamora looks excited.

“No Gamora, you’ve already been arrested twice on assault charges, you can’t beat people up for fun,” Peter says, looking like he was prepared to jump on her to make sure that didn’t happen. Brave man.

“We should do that!” she says excitedly, “we can bring Nat!”

“Ohh, I have a metal arm, if I went they could say they got their ass handed to them by a cyborg! That’s so cool! Gamora, quick, loose a limb so Tony can make you a cool prosthetic and then you can kick my ass and then I can say I got beat up by a cyborg!” Bucky says, looking far too excited about the prospect of Gamora beating him up.

Natasha places her hand on Gamora’s shoulder, “if you could refrain from that I would be eternally grateful.”

*

The painting wasn’t even that good, it was… god it was just terrible and Steve had no clue why everyone was excited about it. Even Scott and Luis were there staring at the stupid thing like it was a masterpiece or something. Scott didn’t even get art and Luis, well, Steve was pretty sure that he wouldn’t be able to afford the price tag on the painting and Steve didn’t even want to see what his boss thought that worthless piece of junk cost.

He was, however, surprised to find Tony there because he had cancelled their plans for that night, Steve had been planning to cancel too so it had worked out, so they obviously hadn’t expected to find each other there. Steve had all but dragged Sam out so he wouldn’t have to suffer alone but Sam slunk off to go do Sam things a good ten minutes ago. “This is what you had to go to? We have bad communication if we didn’t know we were going to the same place,” he says, frowning.

“To be fair I was purposefully vague,” Steve says. Tony had whined for a good hour about going to some art thing Pepper was dragging him to so in hindsight Steve should have seen this coming. He hadn’t known it would be this art thing though.

“I guess, but still. What are you doing here anyways? I thought you weren’t fond of the pretentious art types,” Tony says.

“I’m here because it’s my work that’s on sale. No idea who would pay money for it though,” he mumbles.

Tony looks irritated with that but Steve ignores him and his stupid praise that was bound to follow. Tony knew nothing about art, he’s said so himself, he couldn’t off and compliment Steve’s work when he freely admitted to knowing nothing. Then Tony seems to come to some sort of realization, “you’re not selling that cool painting you did a few weeks ago are you?” he asks, actually sounding disappointed about that. It had been previously hanging in his lab, apt considering what Steve had painted, and he had had to sneak it out.

“No,” he lies badly.

Tony lets out a small gasp of offense, “I need to go make a bid,” he says, running off before Steve could stop him.

When he got there people thought his painting was fantastic, a show of talent, brilliant, whatever. Then everyone got ahold of the news that Tony Stark was interested in the painting, no, not Pepper Potts on behalf of Tony Stark, Tony Stark himself. That’s when the real buzz started and if Sam’s face was an indicator he thought this was fun. Steve? Not so much. “I don’t know why you think that painting is terrible, I like it,” Sam says.

“You know nothing about art,” Steve says. It was… nice, if you ignored all the mistakes. The left side was darker, painted in greys, blacks, pewters, and dark blues minus the brighter blue hologram images. He had purposefully designed it to look almost mechanical in nature, like it was a half formed design of something. There were bits and pieces though that were bright, like the yellow and red bits were trying to break through the mechanical exterior to be seen. The right was essentially the opposite; it was painted in bright reds, yellows, and golds with bits of the mechanical bits carrying over, and the holograms. The math equations were something he had included on a whim when he realized not enough of the left carried over to the right and he needed to balance them out.

It was distinctly more whimsical than its counterpart but in a way that was designed to balance the harshness of the mechanics. He had no clue what they meant but Tony doodled math equations on everything to he had his choice of random numbers and letters to go with. Bits of the darkness carried over too, countering the brightness compared to the other side. Bits of the mechanical parts of the left broke through the right, functioning similarly to the yellows and reds on the left, like some technological creation was trying to break through the brightness. In the middle the two sided met and sort of… mixed, sharing images with each other almost, like they were working together.

At least that’s what it was supposed to look like but the whole thing was botched and it looked like shit. Didn’t stop people from raving about how it was some perfect mix of logic and creativity, art and technology, and other stupid statements that didn’t live up to what was in front of them. “I may not know about art but everyone else here does and they all like it, you’re just being too hard on yourself. As usual,” Sam says, raising an eyebrow. Steve grumbles some more but Sam leaves it thankfully.

Luis is the one that figures it out, having slid over to not-so-slyly talk to Steve with the purposes of talking to Tony. Steve forgives him for his being star struck just this once because he looked so excited. The idea comes to Luis suddenly and Steve watches him make the connection, looking from Tony to the painting to Steve and back to the painting. “Oh my god I get it now!” he blurts and surprisingly does not go further than that.

“Get what?” Tony asks.

“The painting! It’s you!” he says, buzzing with the excitement of newly acquired knowledge while he prepared for one of his legendry rants.

Tony snorts, “no it isn’t, it doesn’t even have eyes,” he says as if that’s the first indicator that Steve did not, in fact, paint a person.

Luis rolls his eyes, “no moron, it’s your mind. See all those tech bits are the inventor, you know? That’s your creations, the final products and stuff. But the other side, that’s the creator part, the part of your process that makes the ideas for the finished projects. Science and creativity, technological advancement and wonder, curiosity. But they can’t be separated though, they’re one thing, which is why parts of each side carry over, because the creativity is the tech and the tech is the creativity. You’ve said it yourself, that you could never be separated from your technology, you and the tech are one. That’s what Steve painted,” he says, finishing fast. Steve was eighty percent sure he hadn’t even taken a breath in all that, which was impressive to say the least.

The look on Tony’s face is the same one he got that day in the lab, when Steve realized he loved Tony. He had been looking at his technology then, explaining his ideas and he had gotten this look of… bliss, happiness. There were people that were important to Tony, sure, but none that generated that specific look on his face, the one that was reserved only for his creations, for his mind’s own ability. It had been inspiring to say the least but when Steve tried to transfer that to canvas it didn’t come out right. It wasn’t the same, the feeling of love, marvel, interest, intelligence, none of that was there. Steve thought the painting felt wooden, forced. Clearly no one else agreed but they hadn’t seen the inspiration so they had no basis for comparison.

“Is that true?” he asks.

Steve shrugs, “it didn’t come out right,” he says in a surly tone.

“It’s called ‘Anthony’,” Luis says, betraying him, “what? It is! I should have realized then but I was too caught up in the-”

“For gods sakes, Luis spare them,” Scott says, showing up just in time to save them from Luis’ rants. “How about we leave the happy couple be, yeah?” he says, shoving Luis off before he can protest and leaving Steve and Tony to their moment.

“I knew there was a reason I was drawn to it. Is this how you see me?” Tony asks, gesturing to the painting.

“No,” he says and for a moment Tony looks hurt, “the image I had in my head was far more detailed than this, more fleshed out. It was a far more true representation than that,” he says distastefully.

Tony laughs, shaking his head and that smile he got, the one that made the corners of his eyes crinkle was there, “you’re way too hard on yourself Steve. Everyone else here loves it, I love it,” he says meaningfully, “I had no idea what you saw was so… intricate,” he says, sounding amazed.

“It’s not even that good,” he mumbles, maintaining his argument as Sam reappears after Disappearing Act Two. He should have brought Bucky, Sam was too curious for his own good and had insisted on exploring everything instead of being a proper friend and listening to Steve’s moping.

“Then you know nothing about art,” an irritating voice says from behind him. Even if Steve hadn’t recognized the voice Tony’s extremely dramatic full-face action eye roll would have told him that Justin Hammer had made the scene. Even Sam looks annoyed and Sam had endless patience.

Steve turns and gives Hammer a frosty smile, “well I know more about it than you, I painted it,” he says, irritated. He looks Hammer up and down and makes a face, “I thought that Tony Stark Circa 1997 was the worst Tony to emulate but I lied, Tony Stark Circa 2005 is worse,” he says in a snide tone.

Hammer rolls his eyes, “whatever. I want that painting,” he says. Figures, of course he would want something that was supposed to be a representation of Tony’s mind.

Tony, however, looks deeply offended at suck a suggestion, “oh no no,” he says, “you will not be getting that painting.”

“Will so,” Hammer says in a whiney indignant voice.

“I already made a bid,” Tony says.

“I’ll make a bigger bid,” Hammer counters.

“I’ll make a bigger bid than that,” Tony says, just as indignant as Hammer. Sam and Steve watch the two, looking back and forth as they bicker at each other like children.

“Yeah? Like what?” Hammer asks, all but confirming Steve’s assessment of them being children.

“Like… like a billion dollars,” Tony says and yeah, they were literal children. Sam looks at Steve with wide eyes making a face that accurately displayed how Steve felt about this situation.

“You would pay a billion dollars for something your boyfriend painted?” Hammer asks in a mocking tone.

“I’d pay with Stark Industries if it meant you didn’t get it,” Tony says. Sam smacks his palm to his forehead. Same, Sam, same.

“If he does this you’ll go down in art history,” he says.

“I don’t want to go down in art history because of a pissing contest,” he says, throwing his hands up.

Tony ends up going home with the painting but thankfully he did not pay a billion dollars for it. Steve was donating the money he did pay to charity so Tony would stop looking so victorious about all but forcing Steve to take his money. He was certain Tony wouldn’t have any complains.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last 'chapter', well, technically compilation of one shots! But still, here y'all go :)

Scene One

Tony watches as Steve and Wade grin at each other from the doorway unnoticed, smiling as the two bicker and share their general happiness that Brock Rumlow was not the president. “You did manage to uh,” Steve waves a hand around.

“Yeah, I got the stuff,” Wade says.

“Like how much,” Steve asks and Tony frowns, hoping he was not getting the right vibes from this conversation.

“Like I’m surprised I managed to cross the border,” Wade says and Steve nods in approval.

“Well, produce the goods you ass, I’ve been waiting for months.” Tony had things to do, honestly, he was probably already late for a Board meeting but this did not look like something he should walk away from. If he had to call Bucky to tell him at some point Steve started doing drugs and none of them noticed he was going to get fucking skinned.

Wade grabs a bag at his feet that Tony hadn’t paid much attention to, unzips it, and turns it upside down. Tony had been expecting fucking cocaine or something equally horrible but no, instead of drugs a ridiculous number of Kinder eggs fall out of the fucking duffle bag.

“Are you shitting me?” he says loudly, “I thought you were on drugs and had friends smuggling some Canadian-grade… something into the country and it turns out you had Wade smuggle Kinder eggs in for you? I’m late for a meeting,” he says, throwing his hands up in frustration.

“Hey man, it is not as easy as it looks okay, they check your shit, I had to get my girlfriend to flirt with the border cops to they didn’t catch me smuggling all these delicious but illegal Kinder eggs to you stupid Americans. I thought I was going to have to shove these things up my ass, I do not have a rectum that can support this many Kinder eggs,” he says in a tone that was far too serious for this situation.

“You could fit one of these in there? The chocolate would make that kind of difficult,” Steve says, lifting one of the eggs to examine it.

Wade examines the Kinder eggs, “yeah I could shove a couple up there. The good news is that when the chocolate melted the border cops would assume I sharted and they’d probably let me go,” he says in a far too happy tone.

Scene Two

Tony squats back down before he gets shot, “what’d you see?” Rhodey asks, hiding behind the cement block they had been using as cover.

“Too quick, nothing,” he says and Rhodey rolls his eyes sky-high dramatically, probably rethinking his entire relationship with Tony up until this point.

“We’re going to die because you’re an idiot, I hope you know that,” Rhodey says.

“We’ll be fine,” Tony says, “how much damage can they do?” he asks. Apparently that question came too soon if his getting shot literally two seconds later was any indication.

“Shit, you’ve been shot!” Rhodey yells and he happens to move out of the way just before he gets shot too. “Fuck you man, you’re dead, every man for himself,” he says, shaking his head and tossing himself over the other side of the cement block.

“You asshole!” he yells at Rhodey, who was now running fast to avoid being killed off by… hell Tony didn’t even know who was doing the shooting. He looks down at the fat red splatter on his chest in distaste; whoever shot him was a right douche for hitting his heart. He looks up at where the paintball would have come from to find Steve’s head poking up from behind another cement block on a hill, which would have been a nice vantage point if he and Rhodey had’ve noticed it first. “Do you even love me?” he yells, deeply offended at the symbolism here.

“Nope,” Steve yells back, “I’m in it to win it, Stark, and you had to go.”

“I hope you get killed by friendly fire!” Tony yells back before pulling himself up off the ground so he could slink off and lick his wounds in peace.

Pepper, Rhodey, and Tony had made up one team while Bucky, Steve, and Natasha made up the other. Tony had been killed, Rhodey had been taken out not long after that but not before he took Bucky down, which left Steve, Nat, and Pep. Pepper manages to take Steve out with a shot that she really shouldn’t have been able to make so Tony was doubly impressed with her skills. That left her against Natasha though and Natasha was good.

“Ten bucks on Nat,” Bucky says.

“Twenty on Pepper,” Tony says, snorting. There was no way his best friend was not winning this, he knew Pep and she wouldn’t give up until Nat was shot at least twice. Rhodey and Steve wisely stay out of the argument in favor of watching Pepper and Natasha battle it out.

In the end they manage to shoot each other at the same time but Bucky maintains Natasha’s paintball landed first. Tony maintains that Pepper’s paintball landed first and Steve tells them both to give it up.

Tony decides to change tactics and hassles Rhodey for leaving him for dead and being a bad friend. Rhodey tells him to be more concerned that his fiancée was a cold blooded killer that shot him in the heart with no hesitation.

Steve maintains that he feels no guilt for killing Tony.

Scene Three

Bucky had fallen asleep on the deck in the sun and that was a terrible idea. Steve watches as Tony carefully places objects on Bucky’s chest while he sleeps, somewhat amused with the prank until Tony steps back and he sees the full design. Then it takes everything he has to keep from bursting out laughing and waking Bucky up before he could tan the symbol onto his skin.

“Natasha’s gunna fucking die laughing,” he says.

“Yeah, this was just for her,” Tony says, grinning. Natasha got to go to Italy with him and Tony so he figured it was only fair he brought Bucky on this vacation. Also he had whined and cried that he loved Natasha more because he had left Bucky behind in favor of bringing Natasha along to his excursions. Bucky should appreciate this because technically this was his and Tony’s honeymoon and he had been nice enough to let his best bud tag along.

Frankly the location was because Tony had some work here and he had liked the idea of beaches so he had decided to tag along and named it their honeymoon. His art had somehow gotten popular so his work was easily brought with him, that way no one was missing anything.

He draws idly while Bucky slowly burns; obviously having forgot to put on sunscreen himself despite harassing Steve for a solid half hour to wear some. Steve shakes his head and lets Bucky fry just a little longer for that, and also because he wanted to ensure Natasha got her laughs worth.

After a while he feels for allowing his poor friend to sun burn so he tosses a pencil at Bucky, hitting him on the shoulder. Bucky blinks himself into consciousness and sits up, sending the objects Tony had used for his lovely prank falling to the deck ground. He looks down at his chest and his face turns two shades of red darker, “who the hell did this?” he asks angrily.

Steve bursts out laughing, snapping a picture and sending it off to Natasha with the caption ‘illuminati confirmed’.

“Stop laughing, there’s a fucking Illuminati symbol sun burned onto my chest! I’m going to tan like this!” Bucky says indignantly. Steve doesn’t stop laughing, actually he laughs so hard that for the first time in a long time he has an asthma attack.

Bucky curses Tony out for the next three days and declares war but all that gets him is shoved off the deck and into the water by Tony. Bucky emerges from the water looking like a pissed off cat with a bad illuminati symbol tan on his chest. Apparently Nat had made Bucky’s horrible tan her new screen saver on her phone.

Even better Nat’s tweet turned Bucky’s illuminati chest into a meme and Bucky gets to suffer the pain Steve had when that stupid sigh meme got popular.

Scene Four

Rhodey and Bucky look very serious and Steve is curious as to what this could possibly be about. “We’re going to hell,” Bucky says finally.

Steve and Tony exchange a look, “yeah, I mean we’re all going to hell, most of us are atheists. Don’t they go to hell?” he asks, looking to Steve because he was the only one with a scrap of faith in religion left. He rolls his eyes because no, he didn’t think atheists were going to hell because they didn’t believe in god, it was natural to be skeptical of an all-powerful being. That, and he’s never been a fan of the way religion was used as a pointed barb to control the population instead of something to bring joy and community to people’s lives.

“I’m sure you’re not going to hell,” he says when it becomes clear he was supposed to dignify this with a response.

“Oh, you’ll think we’re going to hell,” Bucky says with confidence. Rhodey looks like he was already there if the desolate look on his face was any indication.

“What did you two do?” Tony asks after a moment of silence. This is when Bucky and Rhodey look at each other with such shame that they appear to be physically curling in on themselves.

“We… uh… we wrote fanfiction about you. Very smutty, very kinky fanfiction. And it’s very popular, like almost infamous popular and honestly we’re both surprised that you two haven’t heard of it yet and we thought you should hear it from us,” Rhodey says. He looks like he just died a little inside and fine, alright, so they wrote some fanfiction. Actually Steve changed his mind, they were going to hell.

“You two wrote smut about us?” Steve asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Can I read it?” Tony asks and Steve smack him, “what? I want ideas.”

“We are not reenacting our friends kinky fanfiction about us, Tony, that’s fucking weird. I can’t believe I have to explain this to you,” he says, shaking his head.

“Bucky had some great ideas, actually,” Rhodey says. Bucky makes a face at Rhodey and he shrugs, “what? Your objective views on sex made for some pretty sweet sex scenes.”

Tony frowns, “but… I thought you were of the sex repulsed asexual variety,” he says, confused.

Bucky sighs, “I am, but I was so annoyed that everyone kept characterizing Steve as this meek, timid, delicate flower and Rhodey was annoyed that everyone kept characterizing you as a loud, boisterous, abusive asshole. So I sucked it up and we wrote some kinky sex that actually reflected your real personalities and now it’s really famous and people think we know you that’s how well we wrote you two and that’s technically true but… no. No one can know,” he says. Bucky’s got that dead eyed stare he used to get after the car accident and Steve almost feels bad for him, but he did this to himself this time. He should know better than to write fanfiction about real people, let alone write fanfiction about his best friend.

“People can’t mischaracterize us, we’re people, not characters,” he says, hands planted on his hips.

“Oh my god, guys this is sinful. There’s fisting in here! And public sex, and we sleep with Sam, nice indulging of that rumor,” Tony says, cackling while Rhodey and Bucky put themselves into the metaphorical shame cube. “No! You put sex robots in here! No sex robots!” Tony says, going from enthused to annoyed in three seconds flat.

“You’re going to need a sex robot if you don’t properly shame them for this,” Steve says, raising an eyebrow at Tony.

Tony gasps, “you’re using sex as a weapon?” he asks, mock offended.

“We’re married now, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?” he says sarcastically.

Bucky rolls his eyes, “god, I don’t know why guys complain about that, get a fucking pocket pussy and calm down,” he mumbles.

“Statistically women should be complaining so I mean- how in the hell did you get such an accurate description of my dick?” he asks, eyes scanning what Steve assumed was that damn fanfiction.

“We’ve both seen our respective best friends naked, we know what your dicks look like,” Bucky says.

“Into the fucking shame cube, this just got weird,” Tony says, waving a hand around.

“It just got weird to you?” Steve asks in disbelief.

Scene Five

Tony and Rhodey frown at the jewel colored underwear hanging from the ceiling, “why is there skivvies hanging from the ceiling?” Rhodey asks as Steve walks into the room with a wrapped box in his hands.

“Oh, that’s the Christmas tree,” he says as if this was a normal thing, using brightly colored silky undies as a Christmas tree. They were hanging in a tree shape with clear wire though, and there was enough that there was a wide base that tapered off to a pair of white underwear at the top, presumably the ‘angel’.

“Why is the Christmas tree underwear?” Rhodey asks, still frowning in confusion.

“We’re too poor to afford a real tree so we use Peter’s underwear, post wash obviously,” he says.

“I can like… buy you a real tree,” Tony says because this was kind of sad, actually.

“No, the underwear tree is tradition, this year we went and bought all new underwear for this purpose so none of us were grossed out hanging it up. We used to get whoever we were all mad at to hang the tree up, usually Clint, and now that doesn’t matter! And it looks like a real tree! We even have an angel, I mean it’s not a real angel, but its underwear equivalent,” he says excitedly as he places his box under the brightly colored underwear hanging from the ceiling.

Rhodey and Tony exchange a look, “sometimes I forget they’re so much younger than us, then they make an underwear Christmas tree,” he says. Technically Tony was four years younger than him but Rhodey had never really thought of him as younger so Tony was pretty sure he forgot again.

“I think it’s kind of neat,” he says, grinning.

“You’re a child,” Rhodey says, deadpan.

“Guilty as charged,” Tony says happily, walking over to the tree so he could drag Steve off to a cuddling session.

Scene Six

Tony is laughing at something on the screen of his StarkPad and Steve leaves him to it, more content to cook by himself in the kitchen. He’d get Tony to help but the last time that happened he left for a few minutes to pee, heard an explosion, and opened the door to find Tony standing on the opposite end of the kitchen with windblown hair and wide eyes holding a pot lid. He claimed he hadn’t done anything but stir what was supposed to be chili but he must have done something to result in an explosion that had destroyed the stove, the pot the food was in, and the food itself. They had ended up ordering take out and a kitchen renovation.

“People think you’ve ruined me and turned me into a crazy socialist social justice warrior,” Tony says, snickering at whatever he was reading. “Seriously, this one guy is literally pissed of that I’m not the misogynistic womanizer he thought I was. What kind of Disney villain level asshole would be pissed off that I think women are people? And then this guy goes on to call you several very ignorant and homophobic slurs without even acknowledging the hypocrisy of being a fan of me, a guy who has slept with guys since college, and being a homophobe. And then, and then, as if this piece of work couldn’t get any worse he calls Rhodey a racial slur. What an asshole,” Tony says in a tone that was far too calm considering his usual level of upset when these things happen.

“Please tell me you didn’t do something drastic,” he says. He’s gotten over being angry when people made ignorant comments, even when he wanted to be pissed off about it.

“Oh I only sent screen shots of this comment to everyone of importance in his life, like his mother, girlfriend, boss, you get it. I figured they should know what kind of filth they keep,” he says primly.

“Tony, you can’t do that with every rude comment you come across,” Steve says logically.

“I can and I will,” Tony says, sticking his nose in the air.

“What are we trying to talk Tony out of?” Rhodey asks, walking in with a pizza box, the fucker.

“I’m making food you ass, what’s with the pizza?” These people he swore, they were a bunch of savages.

In Rhodey’s defense he at least looked like he felt bad, “shit, I knew there was a reason getting pizza was a bad idea,” he says.

“Getting pizza is never a bad idea,” Tony says, reaching for the box.

Steve throws an oven mitt at him, “get the hell out of there you jerk, I am making a nice meal and you’re going to eat pizza?” he asks, hands on his hips. “And we’re trying to talk Tony out of running the lives of everyone who says something mean about us,” he tells Rhodey to catch him up.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a great house husband, but pizza is better than veggies,” Tony says, taking a piece out of the box greedily. Rhodey picks up the deposited oven mitt and smacks Tony in the head with it, causing Tony to drop his pizza on his StarkPad out of surprise.

“You ungrateful savage,” Rhodey says, snatching the pizza off the StarkPad and picking up the box before Tony could get into it again. “And I think Tony should ruin the lives of the people who say mean things about us, people are fucking racist,” he says, taking a huge bite of the pizza he had stolen from Tony.

“Give me that pizza, I’m starving,” Steve says, taking the box from Rhodey with a thanks, “and I am aware that people suck but Tony can’t take on every asshole who says something mean about us,” he points out.

“I’ll sure as hell try,” Tony says, “and how come you two can eat pizza but I can’t eat pizza?” he whines.

“Because Rhodey will eat what I cooked and I can’t insult myself by not eating food I made. Basically we want you to suffer,” Steve says, taking another slice from the box. Tony looks like he’s about to argue but then he sees some other rude comment and he gets offended all over again. he and Rhodey eat the entire pizza and Tony is greatly offended at them for not leaving him a slice.

“Are you still hungry?” Rhodey asks.

“Yeah, I mean I ate a half a pizza I should not be hungry,” he says, looking at his stomach in surprise.

“You know who’s hungry and has not eaten like twenty pizzas? Me!” Tony says, waving his arms around, “I defend your honors and this is how you repay me? You guys suck,” he mumbles.

“Screw you man, I eat dehydrated shit more than hydrated shit, you were going to eat pizza over a home cooked meal, you do not know how good you have it. Do you have siblings that are as awesome as you that I can marry?” Rhodey asks.

“I have Bucky, but he’s a little married already,” Steve says in an apologetic tone. “Oh, you know what, I’ve got Sam, he’s cool and he can cook.”

“I’m gunna propose tomorrow,” Rhodey says and Steve can’t tell if he’s serious or not.

“Bet Sam would have fun with the media around that,” Tony says and Steve groans. God, Sam needed to stop having fun with the media. With his help Natasha and Bucky realized their dream of convincing a large part of the public that he and Tony were running a fucking harem. He loved his friends, really, but he could have done without being a pimp.

Scene Seven

Tony, in his defense, was trying to understand he was just failing. “How… does that work?” he asks.

Sam at least looks enthused, but probably because he got to drop the pizza analogy and Sam had a weird love for the pizza analogy. “Alright, so it’s pretty natural to asexual equals disinterest in sex, you know, the Bucky types,” he says, “but like. Nah, that’s not all of us. Have you ever not been hungry but smelled a delicious pizza and decided to eat it anyways? That’s basically what it’s like being an asexual with a sex drive, like that initial connection might not be there but you don’t make a pizza and not eat it, pizza’s fucking great. Gotta eat that pizza,” he says and Steve smacks his pal to his forehead. God damn Sam and his pizza analogy.

“Ohhh,” Tony says, apparently coming to an understanding, “that’s got to be confusing.”

“Yeah, for a while I basically had the same panic you did with romance, I mean like sex, sex is great, but I don’t know what the hell sexual attraction is and no one could give me a real definition. Eventually I figured out that libido is not sexual attraction and I’m good now,” he says happily.

“That makes perfect sense,” Tony says, nodding in a satisfied manner, having figured out this particular mystery.

Rhodey frowns, “no it does not, can we go back to pizza thing?” he asks and Sam practically buzzes with excitement.

Scene Seven

“You love Natasha more than me,” Bucky mumbles, crossing his arms. He was still enthused with the prosthetic though everyone else wished he’d shut up about the damn thing. They were all happy for him but the cyborg jokes were getting old, the memes were hilarious though. People liked an illuminati cyborg because that was just too good to pass up on and the conspiracy theories were fantastic. Bucky, however, was not fond when Steve had teamed up with Natasha to meme him like Bucky had been memeing Steve for the last few months.

“I do not, and if you don’t like being a meme than you should have thought of that before you made me a meme several times over,” Steve says. “Besides, if I love anyone more than anyone I don’t love Nat over you I love Peggy more than everyone because she punched a reporter out for asking stupid questions.” The idiot reporter had asked some stupid question about the nature of his an Tony’s relationship but hadn’t left it be when Steve rolled his eyes and refused to answer. So Peggy punched the guy and told him that if he had no interest in understanding Steve’s relationship than maybe he should stop asking questions about it.

Tony had gotten a kick out of that and gave her a raise so Peggy resolved to punch more people. Bucky gives him a sour look at his admission of loving Peggy more than everyone else, “I’ll tell Tony that,” he threatens and Steve snorts.

“Rhodey fed him pizza last night so he currently loves Rhodey more than me and I’m alright with that, I need a break. Let someone else deal with Tony’s existential crisis at two in the fucking morning,” he says. He loved Tony but he didn’t need lectures about gendering robots at three a.m, he was well aware that that was a weird and senseless thing to do. Rhodey was now trying to pass Tony off onto Pepper but Tony was resistant because Pepper did not answer his early morning calls. She probably had the right idea.

“Now you know how I felt when you discovered social justice, pay your dues, Rogers,” Bucky says petulantly.

“Excuse you I waited until a decent time to call, thank you,” he says. Tony was not so accommodating and Steve really should teach him to look at the time before going on very long rants about issues Steve knew more about. If he continued calling Rhodey he’d be grateful forever.

“You were not, but back to the more important subject, _me_. Stop making me a meme, I don’t like being a meme. Seriously, there are people in the world that believe I shot JFK,” Bucky says, looking very unimpressed with this.

“There are people who think that I’m a sex robot Tony invented and that Natasha is his and Pepper’s secret love child. You encouraged both of those rumors even when I told you not to so now you get to suffer being an illuminati JFK shooting meme,” Steve says. Bucky looks grumpy but that’s only because Steve had a point and couldn’t say much about being upset that Steve and Nat had made him a meme when he had been memeing Steve for the last year. Haha, Romanov, take that.

_Scene Eight_

Tony laughs, “oh you want a story that perfectly sums up everything about Steve,” he says, grinning. Steve hadn’t even wanted to do the interview but Tony had whined and cried so he figured fine, he’d do the damn interview. “Well, half the reason we got married was because Bucky didn’t invite Steve to his wedding so Steve decided he wasn’t going to invite Bucky to his. He still ended up being there but still, it’s the principal of the thing,” Tony says.

The host prattles on and Steve limits his eye rolls to one eye roll per three stupid statements and that still ends up being too many eye rolls than socially acceptable. “So how about Tony,” the host asks and Steve tuned back in because the question was directed at him.

“How about Tony what?” he asks, tempted to roll his eyes again.

“What story perfectly sums up Tony?” he asks.

At that Steve _does_ roll his eyes, “if you want to know anything about Tony Stark I suggest googling his name, you’ll only find his entire life in the media,” he says in a snide tone.

“So I lied, that statement is actually a far better show of Steve’s character than his petty marriage plans,” Tony says, snickering.

When the show airs Steve’s eye rolls and apathetic stares off into the distance become the latest Steve Rogers meme and he can’t tell if he’s mad about that or not because the meme was genuinely funny.

_Scene Nine_

“Look, all I need is a selfie with you,” Luis says and Steve glares at him. This was his last day of work at the gallery, at least at his previous job. He hadn’t at all expected his art to take off like it had and he had gone straight to fame really quick. He had tried to blame that on Tony’s fame but it turned out his boss, lovely woman, had anticipated his argument and decided to put his art under a different name so his success was all accredited to his own talent. To be fair it had worked, he had no argument for why his art had taken off without his real name attached to it.

“Really, Luis?” he asks. Honestly he did not get the obsession with himself and the last time he mentioned this to Tony he and Bucky had ended up getting into this weird fight with Bucky in which they tried for a good hour to top one another in Steve knowledge and trying to convince Steve that he was great. They sure convinced each other but Steve had ended up leaving twenty minutes in.

“Yeah man, my friends don’t believe I know you and like I do so I need a selfie to prove them wrong,” he says, wiggling his phone in front of him.

“Only because I actually like you,” he says, rolling his eyes fondly. He doesn’t expect Scott to come flying across the studio to snap a picture too, because Steve wouldn’t be convinced twice. Just for that when the picture turns out terrible he doesn’t let Scott retake it.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


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